More than 60 Bucharest institutions, 36 counties join into 'Night of Museums' event

This year's Night of Museums marks a record high participation - with more than 60 partner institutions in Bucharest and events held in 36 counties, event manager Dragos Neamu announced on Wednesday. "What makes me most happy is that at each edition we improved our participation record. This year we have more than 60 institutions in Bucharest, we have museums in the first place, but we also have friends of museums: libraries, galleries, philharmonics, opera houses, theaters, archives, creative studios, start-ups, experimental spaces, all sorts of creatives who come with various artistic surprises, all sorts of experiments and innovations, toying with technologies. You will see everywhere in Bucharest all kinds of urban spaces, urban rooms oozing experimentalism. We also have a creative neighborhood that grows annually," Dragos Neamu told a press conference held at the Museum of Romanian Records, which this year joined the Night of Museums for the first time. Neamu explained that 36 of the total of 42 counties will participate in the event, and that the offer of the out of the capital participating institutions has started to match the value of the offer of Bucharest institutions. "What I noticed while carefully reading the program is the fact that the value of the offer of the rest of the country is starting to get in line with that of Bucharest. Whereas a few years ago there were considerable differences in terms of quality and experiments, and of the freshness of the acts proposed for the Night of Museums, this is no longer the case. I see everywhere all kinds of feats and highly interesting interventions. I learned that there's a museum of the amateur cinematographer in Resita, I see there are actors in Timisoara and Cluj who act as multipliers of our information and local organizers, who propose all sorts of interesting things in their unconventional spaces," said the event manager. Dragos Neamu also highlighted the participation in the event of three memorials of the communist repression - Pitesti, Gherla and Bihor - that will be open for visit on May 18. "At national level, something that impressed me and which I insist to emphasize is the fact that this year we have these spaces of the communist memory, of communist oppression, connected to the national circuit, as the Pitesti, Gherla and Bihor Memorials are also participating. This is a part of our recent history that we need to know. These three spaces are opening their doors and invite everyone to visit," Neamu said. According to him, the Night of Museums has grown into a festival of creativity, as he mentioned having received event proposals from highschools, philharmonic orchestras and various other spaces. The organizers announced that the new entries to this year's Night of Museums include the Museum of Recent Art, the Museum of Romanian Records, the Moving Pictures Museum offered by Qreator, and the Smallest Mobile Museum, organized by the Madrigal - Marin Constantin National Chamber Choir. "We hope that through the Night of Museums we will convince the state authorities that culture must be subsidized or encouraged with funding and funding mechanisms, to the extent available, we hope to convince them to one hundred percent grant the subsidies and funding," said Dragos Neamu. Gabriel Soare, coordinator of the Museum of Romanian Records, invited the Bucharesters to visit the new museum, mentioning that they will have the opportunity to see collections of vintage irons, corkscrews, writing machines, musical instruments, sewing machines, telephones and telegraphs. "We propose visitors to discover our collection of antique irons - the world's largest, internationally acknowledged and certified - with more than 35,000 different exhibits. (...) The museum also accommodates other collections, some of which are also internationally certified as the world's largest - I am talking about the collection of corkscrews, which has over 30,000 exhibits, about the collection of ironing trivets that counts over 15,000 exhibits. There is also an important collection of old cameras - over 5,000 items - and we also have smaller collections with some 1,000, or 200 - 300 exhibits, that include a collection of writing machines, musical instruments, sewing machines, telephones, telegraphs and many others," he said. The complete list of all museums and spaces participating in the Night of Museums is available on the web page www.noapteamuzeelor.org and on the facebook page https://www.facebook.com/noapteamuzeelor/. AGERPRES (RO - author: Petronius Craiu, editor: Andreea Rotaru; EN - author: Simona Klodnischi, editor: Simona Iacob)