Apparatus 22 – BIO

Apparatus 22 is a multidisciplinary art and design collective initiated by Erika OLEA (b. 1982, Bucharest), Maria FARCAS (b. 1977, Targu Mures), Dragos OLEA (b. 1979, Bucharest) and Ioana NEMES (1979, Bucharest – 2011, NY) during the winter of 2011. The configuration of the new collective based in Bucharest, Romania started during a IASPIS residency in Stockholm, fall 2010.

Apparatus 22 capitalizes also the experiences that members had since 2006 as part of the team that developed the acclaimed cutting-edge fashion label Rozalb de Mura that was a recipient of “Kontakt. Erste Bank Fashion Award” (Vienna, 2006) and among others was involved in On I Off at London Fashion Week (London, 2008, 2009), Berlin Fashion Week / IDEAL (Berlin, 2008) Seoul Fashion Week (Seoul, 2008), research residency at Romanian Cultural Institute (Paris, 2009), IASPIS (Stockholm, 2010) and the recent ARRRGH! Monsters and Storytelling in Fashion exhibition at Benaki Museum (Athens, 2011). OLAH Gyarfas is a permanent guest of the collective.

Apparatus 22 works in the art context with ideas and actions that will ignite the critical potential of clothing and fashion and in design /fashion contexts with projects that aim to find new ways to avoid fashion system’s biggest failures. In their quest for projects with greater consequences on fashion topics they are mixing fiction with reality, storytelling and critical approach, blurring the lines between genders and using knowledge and experiences from art, design, sociology, literature and economics.


2011
– one of the 8 artists contributing to the KILOBASE BUCHAREST A – H, experimental alphabet book on Bucharest (publisher: Mousse, Milan) edited for the «Image projected until it vanishes» exhibition at Museion Bolzano, Italy; 29 May – 28 August
– “Desire is WAR”, The Contemporary Art Gallery, Brukenthal Museum, Sibiu, Romania; July 7 – 31
“Situated Knowledge: I follow Rivers of Thoughts”, The Romanian Institute for Culture and Humanistic Research Venice, Italy; September 15 – November 14
– "Patterns of Aura" performance, MAK NITE, MAK – Austrian Museum of Applied Arts / Contemporary Art, Vienna, Austria; September 20
– "Morpheus Buyback", Steirischer Herbst festival, Graz, Austria; September 24 – 25
– lecture at Glasgow School of Arts, Glasgow, UK (october)
– research residency at Gyeonggi Creation Center, Gyeonggi, South Korea; November – December


upcoming (2012)
– fellowship at Akademie Schloss Solitude, Stuttgart, Germany
– commission for Museum Quartier, Vienna, Austria
– exhibition at Mackintosh Museum, Glasgow, UK