cucuteni alternativ is a project of super tineri (ASIRYS), funded by the European union, under European Solidarity corps programme.
The European Union support for the production of this publication does not constitute an endorsement of the contents which reflects the views only of the authors, and the E.U cannot be held responsible for any use which may be made of the information contained therein.
Artist from Spain, 30 years old, she is specialized in art directing and design.
Interested in copywriting and creative concept creation.
Painter artist, from Italy, 19 years old, she is specialized in free handpaint and create her own painting reality.
Artist from Germany, 19 years old, she is specialized in fashion design.
Sculpture and visual artist from Turkey, 23 years old. He is specialized in sculpture and new technologies.
Artist from Jordan, 23 years old, is a multimedia designer and visual storyteller.
Artist from Egypt, 18 years old, she is specialized in circus, theatre and dance.
Actress from Italy, 19 years old, she is specialized in theatre.
Jazz singer, composer and song writer from Turkey, 25 years old.
Cultural heritage is associated with the past, with something that does not change. But heritage is constantly changing and interacting with those who enrich it, playing an important role in shaping the future.
Cucuteni is a site, an archaeological culture, an Eneolithic civilization, developed east of the Carpathians in the period 5300 - 3200 BC.
Archaeologists and their colleagues in other sciences are working to reveal as many of the unknown aspects of Cucuteni communities as possible. Decryption efforts often lead to questions whose answers are awaited. What historians and archaeologists cannot (yet) an-
swer about Cucuteni Culture, artists can imagine.
Cucuteni Alternativ is a different kind of museum, an experiment that offers artists a context different from that of a gallery or a classic exhibition space. Thus, imagination, creativity and talent are brought to an educational center, which by stimulating the senses, non-formal methods, classical and/or non-conventional exhibitions, challenges the public to give more interest and value to the local cultural heritage represented by the Cucuteni culture.
In 2022, we developed two installations for Cucuteni Alternativ. During the summer and fall of 2022, the methodology of alternative museums received more inputs from youth workers all over Europe, under Cultural Tools for Engagement Erasmus+ project.
An alternative museum is an experiential learning process that includes artistic products created by local and international artists,
inspired by elements of local cultural heritage - customs, practices, places, objects, artistic expressions, values, stories, etc., and various non-formal and artistic methods combined in a story that aims to stimulate the active participation of various audiences, targeting young people. In an alternative museum, space and objects are stimulus, the methodology focus on the experience, on the reflection process and how the public decides to contribute. Everything may look like a game, so the audience, surprised by the approach, is initially unaware of the proximity to cultural heritage.
The second installation of the Cucuteni Alternative Museum involved eight volunteer artists from Italy, Spain, Germany, Egypt, Jordan and Turkey, specialized in sculpture, drawing, music, graphic design, fashion, photo-video, theater, circus and dance. For one week, over 200 students of ‘‘Garabet Ibrăileanu’’ School attended eight workshops, most of the outcome being integrated in the final exhibition. For the second installation, we had 15 days to work, but
the results are showing the talent of the artists involved and the magnetism of Cucuteni.
Before every important exibition, we are trying our methodology with a new group. This time we involved two Erasmus teams, of over 80 international students and teachers. The message we received as a feedback is that they will never forget Cucuteni.
We shared a film collage about Cucuteni and asked the audience to answer to four questions:
a. Why did Cucuteni people burn their houses?
b. Why was Cucuteni a matriarchal society?
c. Why did Cucuteni love to practice the art of ceramics so much?
d. Why did Cucuteni live in peace, without having any weapons?
The questions had the role to underline some of the important mysteries of Cucuteni. Nobody has yet the answers, but we can exploit our imagination.
We told the story of constellations, sharing the connection of the stars with the daily life of Cucuteni people, we did a new type of boardgame and a Cucuteni twister, used drawing and symbols to motivate people to be kind with each other, spoke about peace, improvised music using our body sounds, developed new rituals using role play.
The children became members in the Cucuteni tribe, peace makers, non-materialist, kind, so they had to represent in small groups improvised rituals of taking care of the community, of a funeral, of the beauty of nature or of how they will cherish a new life – birth. We used clay to create the Cucuteni goddesses, used paper and textiles to share messages and create unconvetional outifts, and we used the dance to express Cucuteni vibe.
In one year, we had two very different installations about Cucuteni, and I am wondering what more is to come, how much I, we can expand our creativity? In how many ways can you tell
the story of Cucuteni? For me, when I go to a conventional museum, I wonder how I will feel if one day the curators will pull me into their stories using all my senses?
By 2028, four alternative museums will be launched in Târgu Frumos, bringing together a hundred international artists and a thousand local volunteers to discover and reinvent the local cultural heritage so that it becomes a tool for local development.
Finally, I want to share with you our collective poem about Cucuteni. Each of the nine team members wrote ten words that represent the Cucuteni culture from their own perspective. We mixed them, and each one of us picked ten randomly words having the task to create a poem using all those words. The ending part, was to mix all the poems.
In an old wild time
When brotherhood was important to survive
From a land of peace
Cucuteni once lived on this earth.
Earthly, balanced
Full of meanings
To learn about them
Is not easy.
Matriarchy,
Praying to the goddess of gods
This is the matriarchal ancestress
This is when women were goddesses. We are Cucuteni. Please, tell me. Are we not a light?
Our history is hidden and bright. Be part of my community, we will show you our spirituality, rebirth your soul, and create your sound.
In nature peace advances, Wood burns and hearts pant
Let’s start the ritual
Depict her beauty
Create her figure a talisman from eneolithic a culture canceled from memory?
The essence of burned wood, Will guide you on the mood.
I studied Fine Arts at the University of Madrid and I am currently working as a designer and art director. In my works, I compose a personal story based on the reconstruction of myth and its symbols and small fragments of my own particular reality.
My production have always been linked to drawing, used as a starting point for all kinds of technical and formal experimentation.
During the last month I have been working with the primary school children, aged between 6 and 9 years old.
I developed with them a complete workshop focused on discovering together the symbols that the Cucuteni society gave to the constellations and the position of the stars.
Through games such as twister, ceramic sculpture and prototyping with lights, the children learned how to interpret the stars in the sky as ancient civilizations did.
In addition, the final work gives the children the opportunity to see their work displayed in their school and also in the new installation of the Cucuteni Alternativ Museum.
I could see how these activities involved the participation of all the children in the class, encouraging them to work as a team, to share quality time while learning about Cucuteni civilization.
The final-work that I created is an experiential exhibition project with lighting that is composed of eight constellations that correspond to an archaeological collection of disc tables founded in Turdaş (Romania) that show the origin of the earliest constellations to interpret some shapes and figures in the sky.
equinoxes and summer and winter solstices. And the exhibition will show the relationship of these findings with the Ying Yang temple of the Cucuteni-Trypillian culture.
This project also shows ceramic reproductions of the original finds made by the students of Garabet Ibrăileanu School. During the tour of this exhibition, participants will be able to recognize the main symbols representing the constellations that determine the main spring and autumn
Incredible technological advances, together with knowledge in mathematics and geometry, make the Cucuteni civilization the cradle of knowledge and the arts. The countless findings we have today about this society raise countless unanswered questions, and that makes it all the more interesting.
The profound relationship that the Cucuteni civilization has with nature was
Place of worship (ca. 4400-4250 BC)
Cucuteni culture
my starting point in the creation of this project. For me it is very interesting the perception of time and its cycle in life in relation to nature, their deep spirituality preserved in their artefacts created in 5,300 BC.
and unique. I also learned that behind every artistic expression lies a deep feeling of communicating, of persevering and of being infinite.
History is not written and
we today must take it and interpret it, knowing forms of life previous to ours we can come to the conclusion that probably going back to the past makes us freer.
Being involved in this project, I have been able to investigate more about the sky around us, I have been able to get closer to the way primitive people saw the sky.
To understand that life is a cycle with a beginning and an end, that we are energy in transformation, that from us will remain the artistic legacy that we will create in life and that is special
I studied painting in art school but drawing and painting have always been part of my life since I was a child.
For the workshop of Cucuteni Alternativ with the students of the school Garabet Ibrăileanu I mixed the methods I learned in high school with some new activities.
The topic on which I wanted the develop the workshop was the community of Cucuteni as a matriarchal society.
We started doing exercises about how to represent the reality with drawings, freeing ourselves from the rational part of our brain that tries to symbolize everything. The next step was the acrylic painting: the technique, how to express ourselves
with colors and how to do portraits. After this we started with the final products: on black pieces of polystyrene, that reminds to a stone, the students made portraits between them and other people of the school using pencils and white and red acrylic (the colors that Cucuteni used). In this way we represented the “new Cucuteni community”, the people that now live in the same places where this civilization lived. Later we did drawings to represent the power of women in this society and I put all of them in a collage. It is surrounded by all the portraits, the women were the center of the society, they were leading the community.
What is important for me related to Cucuteni, is that they chose to put all their effort into art and not into war, being pacifist and accepting to be led by women.
I have hobbyist experience with different fields, mostly drawing, painting and textile art. In the workshop with the students, I wanted to imagine how the Cucuteni dressed and produced clothes. The students created their own Cucuteni clothing with fabric on paper using their imagination, we braided, and created jewelry.
Furthermore, we built simple weaving looms and used them. In this way the students learnt one of the techniques the Cucuteni had to create clothing. Sometimes there were language barriers and I no-
ticed that I don’t have a lot of experience working with students. I’m still learning but overall, the experience with the students was very positive and they were friendly and motivated.
During the workshops with the students, multiple art works were created:
• a piece of fabric from all of the woven pieces created, it could be a Cucuteni belt or sash,
• an installation showcasing the jewellery in combination with Cucuteni ceramics and natural materials,
• and a collection of creative Cucuteni outfits that will continue to grow.
Furthermore, I worked and collaborated with my fellow artists. Because of this, other art works of mine are five paper dresses that I created for Ataota’s video.
Of course, Cucuteni is important to historians but I think everyone can take something from it. They were a peaceful society and had beautiful and for their time very advanced ceramics. But there is also a lot we don’t know about Cucuteni because they lived such a long time ago.
As such they serve as a reminder to how little we know about the world. They can inspire our curiosity and imagination. Through working on Cucuteni Alternativ I gained a lot of experience. I learned not to underestimate myself but also to be realistic. I gained experience working with students and facilitating workshops. Cucuteni Alternativ taught me to be more creative and also to join in other projects if I’m curious about them.
All my life, art was a big part of who I am as a person, I’ve always done drawings and crafts growing up, then my love for art grew as I grew up and I decided to study arts at the university.
the fourth grade, aged 10 and 11. First we learned together a little bit about the Cucuteni civilization, then a little bit about comics, and I was lucky that they already had experience in making it.
I majored in visual arts specializing in Multimedia design. I’m especially interested in filmmaking and photography and I want to pursue that as a career.
My desire to experience different art fields is never ending, and I want to continue on learning as long as I live.
First exercise was to think of a story about their lives and friends, family, etc., and then they had to draw it as a comic.
During the period of 5 days, we went to the school and I worked with students from
Then we started talking more about how we think the Cucuteni people lived and just the way of how they were in general. Then it came time to do the comics, the children did their own comic about Cucuteni using their imagination and creativity.
After we were done with the comics, we did some drawing games to challenge the creative side of their mind.
The final product was a comic booklet, that contains the drawings and comics of the children. I called the book “Cucuteni in the perspective of kids”, because for me the point of my workshop was to show how little kids think and imagine things so freely and how much it is different from when you are older.
know about history in general, and Cucuteni, as it being the oldest civilization in Europe, it is crucial to keep the researches and museums to continue on shedding the light on the history and the legacy of people who were before us.
This whole period of working on Cucuteni, taught me that we can work under
pressure, that all of us the Arts Lab 4.0 team have something special that brought us here all together, working and creating.
Also, I helped Ataota and Chiara in filming and editing their videos.
I think it is important to
All the products that were made through this exhibition are great, creative and special in its own way.
I study art at high school after that I finished art education at university and my main field is sculpture.
In my workshops at school, firstly, I asked what the students know about Cucuteni. I shared information about Cucuteni civilization and their building plan. After learning a bit about Cucuteni infrastructure, I asked them to draw their own Cucuteni villages.
Second part consisted in making houses with clay that I included in my final artwork that includes symbol drawings and a big sculpture. I chose to create a woman giving birth because Cucuteni looks like a civilization that worship the fertility.
I think Cucuteni is so important for history and art history because of their ceramic art and of their misteries.
In 2012, I started my path as an artist in Al Darb Al Ahmar Arts school as a circus player, I did multiple workshops and performances inside and outside Egypt.
In 2014, my arts school wanted to do a big performance to graduate us, and they did a play called “lost and found” it was the first time for me to know that I could act, and I started to take workshops to improve my skills as an actress and did two more plays “ Midsummer night’s dream” and “The flying noon”.
In 2017, I participated in a one-month camp in Lebanon and there it was the first time for me to learn how to dance contemporary dance and from that time I knew right away that I want to work on that and not to be only a dancer or an actress or a circus player I want to be a multifaceted performer.
cises and go out of their comfort zone but they tried and did it in the end.
During the Cucuteni Alternative, I worked with over 30 students on how to work in group, how to create a safe space to experience their self and discover more about their self and their body.
It wasn’t easy for the them to try these kinds of exer-
My final product is a video about Cucuteni lifestyle. How the woman was so important in their life, the process of pregnancy, and how they were always together, acting like a group in the bad and good times, how they were dancing, how they were doing their religious rituals.
I put all this in one video in a contemporary way and I presented through dance.
And I collaborated with Maja to create the clothes for the video and also, I collaborated with Federica
to create the wall inspired by the Cucuteni symbols.
For the video I went a bit out of my area, and I created candles inspired by Cucuteni civilization.
Cucuteni Alternaiv gave me the chance to know and learn more about Cucuteni civilization. It gave me the chance to work on my own ideas to live the process of creation.
And also, I learned the more you are collaborating with people the more you’ll get inspired, the more you’ll have a final product made with love.
I don’t like having to use words to lock myself up in something defined because I feel constantly evolving and researching as a person and as an artist.
I have always loved the art world in all its forms, but in particular the field in which I have more experience and expertise is that of theater.
Ibrăileanu school and of the Liceul Special “Moldova”. Together we worked on self-knowledge and the group dynamics and we developed a video about our personal interpretation of a Cucuteni ritual.
My dream is to be an eclectic person because I like to be contaminated continuously to have the opportunity to always improve.
Seeing these guys improve day by day has given me a lot of satisfaction and moments that I will surely carry in my heart.
In the last period I had the chance to realize my Cucuteni project thanks to the precious help of the students of the Garabet
Mainly I believe that the Cucuteni Alternative Museum can help viewers immerse themselves in this civilization experimenting with an approach to life different from what the current society leads us to have.
Taking time to let yourself be carried away in the experience leads to reconnection with the primary essence of ourselves through the pleasure of making art. Although it has been a long time since this civilization was pulsating and alive, I perceive very strong common roots that it was nice to rediscover through the work done.
I started music education at the age of ten and I studied Fine Arts High School Music Department in Hacettepe University Ankara State Conservatory – Jazz section. I continued in the vocal department. I am currently interested in my personal album works.
In my art workshops for Cucuteni Alternativ museum, I introduced to the students a primitive instrument that I produced using only stones. I made small concerts for them, and we experienced playing this instrument together.
various stones, bushes and wood. I made a primitive rhythm instrument using these natural materials. My purpose in making this instrument was to try to understand and feel the musical tones of the earliest times of humanity and the Cucuteni civilization. It was a great experience.
Cucuteni inspired me to share an old Turkish story, that speaks about the first artist. I am sharing the story, as a poem, and one of my final products is a song about it that I play in Romanian.
I wandered around the lands inhabited by the Cucuteni civilization, collecting
In Cucuteni times, there was a tribe.
During the day, they went hunting
And they would return in the night.
In the tribe there was a man named Isaiia, who did not hunt
But he was walking through the forest,
To listen to the birds, to worship the FLowers
To enjoy nature.
When the tribe returned tired, from hunting
Isaiia was telling them about the forest
He sang to them and invited them to dance
And they all laughed and fell asleep happily.
But one day, a man wondered
Why is Isaiia not working?
Let’s take the sloth with us on the hunt!
He went with the tribe to hunt
And in the evening, tired, he fell asleep.
And the days passed, and the tribe felt something is missing,
It was empty, they were sadder
They came from hunting tired and sleepy.
And Isaiia stopped telling stories, He stopped singing, he stopped dancing.
And they soon understood that Isaiia had an important role in the tribe
And instead of a hunter
They let him be... an artist.
In this project, I got to know a very ancient civilization that I did not know until now. I examined the lifestyles, houses, pottery, and many symbols they used of this civilization.
