I remember

When I first got out of the country, in 1996, I didn’t realize how lucky I was. It was my first trip outside the country, I was 14 years old, and I had a chip on my shoulder.

In all honesty, I don’t think there is a 14–15-year-old who is happy to spend time with his parent, and I was no exception. I was more preoccupied with how my hat was hanging or if my jeans were cool enough than taking pictures with my parents and brother.

Fast forward 29 years.

Bucharest.

In January, I started a project in Bucharest. I wanted to shoot more and more, and, in all honesty, I can’t be on holiday all the time, visiting new and exciting places, so I needed to find a solution to go out more and take more pictures. Also, I wanted a challenge, a project, something to build.

So, after going alone a couple of times I got out with a friend on a lazy weekend day, and that’s where it hit me. It all started with us walking the streets of the city, and I started to remember. I started to tell him bits and pieces from my childhood. From these streets. Memories. What I remember from more than 30 years ago.

And this is where the title of the article comes from.

I remember.

A lot.

And so, it starts…

I remember walking these streets, passing next to these old buildings and moving slowly between my destinations. There was no rush then. There was no late. I was never late. Just like Tolkien’s Gandalf, when he stated, “A wizard is never late, nor is he early, he arrives precisely when he means to.”

And not only do I remember how it was back in the day, but I also realize how important photography is for me.

I passed through these streets hundreds of times. Yet I never stopped looking at the old facades of buildings. I never looked at the stained and cracked windows, at how people and cars reflect in them, I never once looked around at the old walls, now covered in graffiti.

This time, though, I did. And it brought back so many memories. I remember always looking up, finding details, looking at old statues or at balconies. 30 years ago, these buildings looked so different. Newer, cleaner, their windows still intact. My head would spin and spin and try to find objects, games, things I could or thought I could only see.

Now, as I walk these streets, a mixture of sadness passes me. No more clean walls, no more uncracked windows. Graffiti, dirt, ruin, cracked walls and windows. It’s like a different world from the one I grew up in.

All those styles, all those buildings, art deco, jazz, Romanian Brancovenesc style, all buried under layers and layers of graffiti, spreading on the walls, pavement, windows, fences, everywhere. I think, I honestly think this is not art. As a matter of fact, I am preparing a small series for an expo that focuses on this idea, a series titled “A battle lost”.

You see, Bucharest has no shortage of writing on the walls. Letters, signatures, gang acronyms, insults, personal claims that have remained suspended in the public space — all seem to be trying to say something.

But what am I saying? In this series, I don’t document urban art, but the lack of it.

Cities such as Berlin, Paris or London have understood that street art is not only a form of revolt, but also one of aesthetic communication, of message, of symbolic reconstruction of urban space.

In Bucharest, the walls do not bear paintings, but traces of abandonment. Doodles made on the run, without composition, without meaning, without aesthetics. A layer of visual noise that covers everything: historical facades, monuments, doors, stairs, schools, hospitals.

Like a city that no longer has the energy to say something, but cannot be silent either. This is the “lost battle” not between the authorities and young rebels, but between the idea of the city and the idea of expression. A fight in which neither of the parties proposes anymore, but only reacts.

“A Battle Lost” is a chronicle of this void. I don’t condemn; I don’t idealize. I Notice. I Document.

So, this is the first thing I remembered. How different the city felt before, how clean it was, if you like this expression. How all these layers of drawing did not cover all those walls.

And I kept remembering things. I remembered the area where my grandparents lived. An old area in the center of the town. Quiet, near a beautiful park. As my steps carried me forward to those old places, I smiled bitterly, seeing every column, every wall painted with graffiti.

I remembered eating with my grandfather at a store where they bragged about having shrimp’s chips. Basically, some kind of mixed flour and potato chips and God knows what other things, but nobody knew that back then, and they did taste awesome from what I remember.

I passed near that old place, now abandoned, old glasses covered in dust and drawings, a lock on that door, probably closed for 10 or 20 years, an old relic, a space nobody wanted to rent and keep open for another business.

And for the first time I understood something. It was the first time in decades that I walked on these streets again.

As time passed, I neglected some areas of the city, or I just drove through them without paying attention to what was happening outside, focused only on the crazy traffic outside.

All or most of the areas that I used to see a lot, so different from years ago. And not the kind of difference where old buildings were preserved or torn apart so new buildings can be built. No. Abandoned. Dirty. Cracked. Like waiting for the time to erase them from the face of the city.

I haven’t been so excited about photography in months. I have plans, ideas. I have lists of places I want to see and photograph. I want to document as much as I can. To preserve what I can before it finally happens. Before they finally disappear. Before people forget about them forever.

It felt weird. The first time I got out, it felt weird. I was not used to this. I never noticed the decay, the state in which these old buildings were. Even now, when I sort the pictures or edit them, in a way, it still feels weird. But the pictures also make me hungry. To go out more, to shoot more.

In a way, I think I owe it to my city.

You see, I visited London, I visited New York, I visited so many places, and for that I am grateful.

But Bucharest is home. Bucharest with memories of childhood, of family, of love, of friends, of stupid things I did just because I was immature or crazy.

Because I still remember things like jumping over fences and swimming in pools at night.

Because I remember drawing crossroads with paint and chalk on the roads and making the cars stop.

Because I remember using traffic signs and construction signs to block parts of the street so we could play football on it.

Because I remember jumping fences into houses that were under construction, bringing a stereo and speakers and blasting a party with 40-50 people like there was no tomorrow.

Because I remember connecting the first computers to my block and creating a network. I remember drawing cables from the rooftop of a block to the next one and so on until we had tens of people in our network.

Because I remember the fights, the slaps, the kicks given and received.

Because I remember years spent cheering for my favorite team, running from school to see them, singing for hours, cursing and shouting, traveling through the entire city with the scarf hidden so I didn’t get jumped.

Because I remember all the people I had fun with. Drinking, partying, getting in the cars and driving for hours without a destination, the clubs, the movies, every stupid little thing that we did.

I said at the beginning of the article that I was fortunate to have visited important cities like London since I was a child.

Maybe in a way that was also a kind of, not necessarily, bad luck, I really don’t know how to describe it, but perhaps that made me appreciate Bucharest less when I was growing up.

And now I just realize what I lost. It’s very difficult to think about it after 20-30 years. Maybe in a way, I see things a little more romanticized now, maybe not everything was that rosy, perhaps now, faced with this decay, this collapse, I try to make things seem prettier. But one thing I know for sure, Bucharest, yes, clearly, is not London, is not New York, but it is a city, it is the place where I grew up.

If someone were to ask me now if Bucharest is a beautiful city, or if it’s a pleasant city, I might not know what to answer.

I might think about the hours I spend in traffic every day, just to get to work, to get to my parents, to get anywhere at all. Maybe you’d think about potholes, broken asphalt, derelict buildings, and no one could blame you for that.

But if I had time to read this article, if I had time to think about the past, to remember things, and someone were to ask me again – “Is Bucharest a beautiful city?” Then my answer would be yes.

Not only is it a beautiful city, but it is also an incredibly fascinating city. It is a city where you encounter beauty, you encounter ugliness, you encounter chaos, you encounter love.

It is a city where traffic is horrendous. Madness is at home here. It is a city in constant motion. Sometimes a circus, sometimes too sober, sometimes a freak show, this is Bucharest.

And this city is my home.