The Memory Laboratories: The House with Ivy continues the series of Memory Laboratories initiated by Renée Renard in 2017, starting from the premise that any space (natural or man-made) is not only a silent and ever-present witness of human existence, but also a complex collage of histories and events, a true holder of memory. The new series of Memory Laboratories in which the stories of the houses in Timișoara are presented begins with the mysterious House with Ivy, inaccessible to the public for many years. Built at the beginning of the 20th century as the headquarters for the Horticulture Society of the city and a residence for Mihail Demetrovici, the director of the Horticulture Society, the house was reopened a few years ago as an art gallery and store of Terra Apis apiculture products. In this house, the sketches for the Rosary (Rose Park) and the Arboretum (the current Alpinet Park) were born, plans were made for the activity of the Friends of the Roses Association under the high patronage of Queen Maria, of the Banat Association for the Protection of Nature, there was talk and there were studies about medicinal herbs, teas, beekeeping, art. For the realization of this project, the artist got in touch with the descendants of Mihail Demetrovici, searched the city archives and in the inter-war press, made microscopic research of the structure of the house, the beekeeping products, the Canadian vine that currently completely covers the house.
Artist: Renée Renard
Renée Renard lives and works in Timisoara. She graduated from the Faculty of Arts and Design and the Faculty of Veterinary Medicine and is currently a PhD student at the Faculty of Arts and Design Timișoara. In her artistic creation she approaches issues related to the convergence of science, art and documentary research, expressing herself through installation, object, mixed media under the microscope, photography/ video under the microscope and underwater, digital processing, adaptations of the ancient Japanese techniques kintsugi and tataki zome. She works with narratives related to the micro-history of her family with Central European origins, the colonization of the Banat area in the 18th century, the history of Romania after 1945. (A One Hundred Lives Long Journey, faBRIQUE, Micro-Terra Banatica). She initiated the Memory Laboratories, in which documentary research and microscopic examination of various samples taken from the field are integrated into in situ installations in the form of a laboratory.
To date, she has had 17 solo shows and over 60 participations in group exhibitions in Romania and abroad. She obtained the Murano Prize of the Abate Zanetti Glass School in Murano/ Italy (2013), the Prize of the Municipality of Portet sur Garonne/ France at the Triennale Européenne de l'Estampe Contemporaine (2016), the 1st Prize for Microphotography at Micromaps 1st edition, of the Faculty of Arts and Design Timișoara and the Regional Center for Research and Expertise in the Field of Conservation-Restoration (2021). She is a member of UAP Timișoara Multimedia section (since 2010) and of the Avantpost group (since 2015).