The art installation 'A Blouse as Big as a Village - Archetypal Shirt of the Rural World', a large-scale work dedicated to archaic femininity, memory and Romania's intangible cultural heritage, will be presented on June 24, the Sanziene holiday, by the Docuart Association in the Endless Column Park in Targu Jiu.

According to a press release sent to AGERPRES by the organisers, the installation will be on display in the Endless Column Park between 12:00 and 20:00, offering a powerful image symbolically raised between heaven and earth: an ie with altita measuring approximately 20 square metres, hand-embroidered with Gorj motifs by ten artisans in the Acul & Ata folk art workshop, alongside a 220-centimetre braided plait created by artist George Soare and complemented by medicinal plants and decorative elements.

''A Blouse as Big as a Village' is built around two essential feminine adornments: the ie with altita and the braided plait. Two forms rooted in Romania's archaic culture, two identity markers speaking of ritual, order, protection, belonging and memory. The ie, bearing embroidered symbols, becomes here a symbolic body, a living memory of women and the community. The braided plait, in turn, is reclaimed as an extension of the body, beauty and feminine strength, as an adornment, gesture and sign of continuity. The work starts from the ie with altita, an element inscribed on UNESCO's Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity, and reinterprets it through a contemporary visual language. The hand-embroidered Gorj motifs, the unusually large dimensions of the shirt and the presence of the braided plait transform the installation into an archetypal image of woman as cosmos - woman as bearer of life, rhythm, care and memory, and guardian of symbolic order and community traditions. George Soare, the artist who created the braided plait, turns this adornment into an identity symbol and a form of contemporary expression. Within the installation, the plait becomes a symbolic object, an extension of the female body. The archaic act of braiding is reactivated through a contemporary visual language,' the press release states.

The installation is part of the project 'Wood, Canvas and the Spoken Word', a Docuart initiative dedicated to researching, activating and promoting Gorj's tangible and intangible cultural heritage.

Through this project, Docuart continues its focus on the living forms of community memory, craftsmanship, symbolism and traditional objects, and on the ways these can be brought into the present through art, documentary film and contemporary cultural interventions.

The project is initiated by the Docuart Association with the support of Targu Jiu City Hall and the 'Constantin Brancusi' Research, Documentation and Promotion Centre.

'This installation was born out of the need to make visible two essential forms of traditional feminine identity: the ie with altita and the braided plait. We enlarged them not to turn them into spectacular objects, but to restore their symbolic power and allow the public to look more closely at details that often remain unnoticed. For us, 'A Blouse as Big as a Village' is a work about how heritage can be activated today through a contemporary visual language,' art director Daniela Apostol told AGERPRES on Monday.

The installation will be curated by Andrei Fasie.

''A Blouse as Big as a Village' revisits Romanian identity elements specific to traditional women's attire while presenting the results of our research in a different form. The ie, embroidered by ten pairs of hands, is the largest such blouse ever created. Enlarging it allows the public to more easily identify its formal characteristics - the structure of the blouse, the altita, the symbols and other elements - while also understanding its importance and symbolic value in the cultural life of the traditional Romanian village. At the same time, the oversized braided plait, measuring more than two metres, highlights another feminine attribute that once conveyed information about a woman's status. Together, they bring back into focus the importance of women in village life and offer a different interpretation of these two seemingly simple yet profoundly complex languages - the ie and the braided plait,' Andrei Fasie said. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Daniel Badea; EN - writing by: Simona Iacob)