A one-off photo exhibition opened on Friday at 'Casa Baniei', the ethnography section of the Oltenia Museum, spotlighting a fragile and often overlooked heritage: the old wells of Oltenia.

Discreet monuments of rural life, these water structures are not legally protected and risk disappearing. The exhibition, titled 'Wells of Oltenia. Archive and Contemporaneity', seeks to restore their cultural and historical importance through photography.

'It's a special exhibition, promoting a type of historical monument that has not been given due importance. Interestingly, professional photographers began documenting and promoting these constructions before heritage experts,' said museum director Florin Ridiche.

The display features images collected over more than a decade, showing wells of various types - well sweeps, chain wells, wheel wells, wooden and stone structures - found both in villages and isolated fields. Beyond their practical role as sources of water, they were vital landmarks, guiding travelers, marking boundaries and serving as meeting points.

'Where there is a well sweep, you know you are heading to a certain village. Some even marked borders between localities,' explained museographer Roxana Deca, who emphasized their role in rituals such as weddings or Epiphany traditions.

Specialists warn that many wells captured in the photographs have already vanished, underscoring the need for legal protection similar to that granted to historical monuments. 'Time is running out for these landmarks,' Ridiche stressed.

The exhibition combines archival photographs from the museum's collections - including black-and-white images from the 1930s and ethnographic campaigns of the 1950s - 1970s - with contemporary works from the independent project 'Wells of Oltenia', carried out since 2016 by the Omnia Photo Association, with the goal of mapping and documenting community-use wells in the region of Oltenia region, as vernacular structures essential for rural life and collective memory.

Documentary photographers Cristian Bassa and Dorian Delureanu, together with anthropologist Ana-Cristina Irian and museographer Roxana Deca curated the project, with contributions from museum specialists.

Delureanu, who helped found Omnia Photo through this initiative, recalled documenting wells in his native Bobicesti, Olt County: 'When we think of a well, we think of childhood, of grandparents, of that beautiful period of life,' he said.

The exhibition highlights how the disappearance of water wells means more than the loss of old structures. It erases collective memory, breaks the link between people and landscape, and weakens rural identity. Without them, fields and roads lose symbolic meaning, and communities lose part of their story.

Depopulation, modernization and neglect accelerate this decline. Each vanished well, the organizers argue, is not just a material loss but a page of local history erased - recoverable only through photographs and memories.

The exhibition runs at Casa Baniei, Oltenia Museum, from January 23 to February 24, 2026. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Maria Mitrica; EN - writing by: Simona Klodnischi)