Romanian Creative Week, the largest event dedicated to the creative industries in the European Union, returns from 2 to 8 October with the second edition of RCW X Bucharest, the autumn capsule of RCW.

According to a press release sent to AGERPRES, the event brings to the capital a substantial selection of the projects presented in Iasi in May, reconfigured for different spaces and contexts, alongside projects created specifically for the Bucharest edition.

An important part of this capsule is dedicated to the Arts pillar of Romanian Creative Week. Photography, installation, sculpture, fashion design, exhibition architecture and participatory art create, over seven days, a route through galleries and cultural institutions, while also extending into Bucharest's parks and squares. The common thread is the theme 'RCW 2026, JOY,' explored not as a simple aesthetic exercise but through the relationship between viewer and artwork, body and space, nature, technology, memory and identity.

The Arts programme begins on Friday at 3 pm at The Group with the opening of the '...and Portraits' exhibition by Alex Galmeanu. The exhibition can be visited until 8 October by invitation only. The exhibition setup, based on a design conceived by Alex Galmeanu, is by architect Mihai Birtu.

On the same day, at 5 pm, 'PORTAL,' a fashion design, object and participatory experience installation by Mihaela Glavan, will open at the Art Gallery of the 'Dimitrie Brandza' Botanical Garden, part of the University of Bucharest. Admission to the opening is by invitation, while the exhibition will subsequently be open to the public free of charge until 8 October. The project explores what happens when fashion moves away from the logic of spectacle and comes closer to the body, matter and silence.

Also on Friday at 5 pm, the Hidden Realities sound installation by visual artist Andrei Cozlac will open at the Botanical Garden. Admission is free and the exhibition will remain open until 8 October. Starting from Nosce te ipsum - 'Know thyself' - the work creates a series of points of resonance in which Tibetan bowls, water, the viewer's gestures and sound connect immediate reality with less accessible areas of perception.

Also at the Botanical Garden, on Friday at 5 pm, the opening of 'Hidrophoria,' curated by Caterina Pruteanu, will take place, with architectural setup by Carina Lacatusu.

The first evening continues at Scanteia+, where 'Metafora,' the central exhibition of RCW 2026, will be reconstructed for Bucharest in a One Night Only format. The exhibition, curated by Marian Palie, with exhibition design by architect Robert Marin, brings together the same selection of almost 20 artists in an architecture with a radically different identity and memory.

The evening programme begins at 8 pm with the opening of 'Metafora' ('Metaphor') continues at 9 pm with the '.aetherium' performance by Andrei Budescu and, from 9.30 pm, Charles B takes over the evening with a DJ set.

The Saturday Arts programme begins at 3 pm at Atelier 35 with the opening of The Mirror Stage. Curated by Marian Palie, the project is the result of a six-year research process and investigates the cultural, psychological and aesthetic effects of the mirror on the human subject.

At 4 pm, 'Pietre de Hotar' (Boundary line) a project curated by architect Andrei Bodnar, will open in the Romanian Athenaeum Park. The project is open to the public free of charge throughout RCW X Bucharest. It uses the mirror as a signal in a space that residents pass through every day. At the same place and at the same time, artist Miki Velciov presents 'Synthetic Daisy.' The installation transforms a daisy into an artificial object placed in the landscape and creates a tension between nature and industrial production, the organic and the manufactured copy, reflecting on the proliferation of plant simulacra and the fragility of the contemporary relationship between humans and the natural environment.

At the Central University Library, the opening of 'Fragile Thoughts powered by Pepsi,' an installation by Georgea Dura and Andrei Cozlac, is scheduled for 4.30 pm on Saturday. The work explores the fragility and ephemeral nature of the present through the contrast between a massive, static hand and an airy, unstable material, transforming the tension between the human desire to control time and the changing nature of reality into a large-scale image.

At 5 pm, in George Enescu Square, 'Kaleidoscope powered by Pepsi,' curated by Silvan Cimpoesu and Karina Luncasu, creates a labyrinth of colour, movement and direct encounters, produced in the context of the 60th anniversary of Pepsi in Romania. Also in George Enescu Square, at 6 pm on the same day, the opening of 'Teatru Gonflabil' ('Inflatable Theatre'), a project by Andrei Ivanovits and Ionut-Valerian Ursachi, will take place. The installation, open to the public on 3 and 4 October, proposes a temporary structure intended for performance and encounters in the urban space. The day continues at 7 pm in the Court of Honour of the Royal Palace with the opening of 'Fantastic Posse,' a new media installation by artist Sebastian Comanescu, comprising three monumental inflatable sculptures that translate the theme of JOY into a group of fantastic 'creatures' and draw conceptually on David Foster Wallace's famous 'This is Water' speech.

The full programme of RCW X Bucharest 2026 is available at www.romaniancreativeweek.ro. AGERPRES (RO - writing by: Petronius Craiu; EN - writing by: Adina Panaitescu)