ICR Romanian Cultural Institute London

Ethnographic exhibition "On the clothesline. Romanian Dowry" & Award-winning book launch "A sprig of dill"

Authentic village artefacts from the Romanian Peasant Museum: carpets, pillows, tablecloths, linen, towels - all from the good room - in an exhibition that goes to the roots of Romanian traditions and culture.

Romanians keep their treasures indoors. Having a treasure room, the good room, the ruda room, filled with hand-made textile, clothes, carpets, items that are always displayed yet never used, is a must for any well-off Romanian peasant. This is the dowry of the woman and preserving it is a matter of pride and hard-work. Twice a year these treasures are taken outdoors to be cleaned and freshened up. They are washed at the river or at the water whirlpool, they are hung on the clothesline, ironed, treated for moths and arranged again on display in the good room. All these procedures can last as long as a week; as they say, it takes hard work to have a good room.
The good room, the ruda room in Northern Romania, is in itself an exhibition. An exhibition of the best and most beautiful items the family possesses. The exhibiting technique, if one can speak of it, is crowding. All the more crowded the good room is, all the more beautiful it is considered: carpets, pillows, tablecloths, linen, towels, icons, decorated plates, the more, the better!

This exhibition borrows from the village a form of display that the peasant does not consider as such. Hanging the precious family dowry on the clothesline is not a form of exhibiting it; it is only a necessary annual ritual. Still, the foreigner, the ethnographer, is fascinated by the display of textile on the clothesline. There (s)he can see and feel the fine details, the thread, the coloured models, the hand-made linen. It is only once a year that the treasures of the good room can be thus observed. For the rest of the year, they are hidden, one on top of the other, in the crowded museum that is the good room.

This is your chance to admire them from a close distance. Don't be afraid to touch them if you feel the need to, but bear in mind their beauty is also their fragility and old age.
                                                                                                                          (Romanian Peasant Museum)

The evening will open with the award-winning book launch A Sprig of Dill, by Sanda Nitescu - in the presence of the author and translator Josephine Bacon. The book was published in 2007 by Pholiota Publications and in 2008 won the London Gourmand Awards for the best translation.

When I first came across this book, I was enchanted by the author's evocative style and vivid depictions of her life in Romania. The characters who played a part in creating and consuming these Romanian dishes, with their evocative aromas and flavours, are recalled through a series of letters to a French friend. The author relives Romanian family life in the 1950s, in the portraits of her own family whom she depicts through the sensual eyes of a painter.
The result is a powerful reminiscence, a vibrant and evocative fund of memories through which the author conveys this lost world to her adoptive country. Through these letters to an imaginary friend, she shuttles back and forth between the two cultures. The book is a combination of past and present, comparing and contrasting her happiest moments and allowing the reader to re-create something of them through the delicious recipes.
Josephine Bacon (Pholiota Publications)

When: Opening: 14 September 2009, 7 pm; The exhibition continues until 25 September 2009, 10 am - 5 pm

Where: Romanian Cultural Institute London
Admission: free. Please contact us if you wish to attend the opening.