Fabrica de Pensule – Space for contemporary art
The project started at the beginning of 2009, as an independent initiative to bring together ideas, events and projects of cultural organizations, galleries, producers and independent artists in Cluj and as a reaction to the local lack of production and exhibition spaces in the city.
Fabrica de Pensule is the first collective project of such dimensions on the Romanian cultural scene and also one of the most relevant examples of converting an industrial building into a cultural space.
The artists, galleries and organizations – active in the fields of theater, contemporary dance, visual arts, arts in public space, music – are jointly engaged into delivering relevant cultural content, both for the artistic community and the wide audience. Besides artist studios and production spaces, Fabrica de Pensule also hosts events of local and international partners. It acts as a major player in cultural and urban policies in the Romanian context.
Fabrica de Pensule – Network devoted to art, formation and cultural innovation
After 10 years of existence as a physical space, housed in a former industrial building, we were constrained, by a complex of conditions and transformations of the city’s economic and cultural space, to rethink our identity and to move forward to a new stage, that we could call platform-program-community. Having a new artistic and institutional vision, Fabrica de Pensule creates a new identity, that of an expert network whose main role is the transfer of knowledge to the new generation of artists and cultural managers. Currently, the organization continues to work with a network of professionals (artists, producers and cultural managers), who acquired know-how and gained work experience while being involved in the projects developed by Fabrica de Pensule.
Since 2020, Fabrica de Pensule consolidates and initiates new partnerships with other cultural actors, at national and international levels, while carrying out in their spaces activities that deal with current topics and themes, from exhibitions and performances organized in partnership to workshops, residences and other types of educational activities directed towards the new generations and the emerging artists.
Fabrica de Pensule focuses on collaborations concerning the contemporary art and culture and on the construction of a critical discourse around them. A special attention is given to the dialogue between fields and to collaborative practices, while cooperation with national and international partners being another key element in their projects. The organization has been involved and will continue to be involved in the creation of a relevant cultural content, both for the artistic community and the wide audience. The members of the network built by Fabrica de Pensule are often involved in the development of cultural and urban policies at a local level.
Once dematerialized, Fabrica de Pensule functions as an expert network whose members contribute to the development of the cultural and artistic offer of Cluj-Napoca. Fabrica sees the local artistic environment as a common platform that is made up of the vast network of organizations sharing the same interests. Through its projects, Fabrica contributes to the promotion of innovation in contemporary art and culture at a local level and the promotion of artistic cooperation at an international level, by implementing research, production and dissemination programs about contemporary art in the fields of visual arts, performing arts, cultural formation and audience development, while providing a platform to debate topics relevant to the contemporary society and the city of Cluj-Napoca.
