Young artists, we are looking for grandparents to teach us their passions

Do you know skilled and fickle grandparents who have stories for Retro Radio?

Actors, directors and musicians, together with over 30 grandparents, want to recompose the history – unique and anthological – of the culture of informal crafts in Romania. We want to know everything about zacusca, pickles or miles, about socks, scarves and gloves or about the patterns in Burda magazine. We are interested in clay masks, the purpose of the tool kit, gardening or the secrets of country wine.

If your grandparents are good at one of the areas below, they feel like telling stories and you think they would like to join our team, enter them by filling in the form.

Illustration: Romina Ionescu

The interviews with them will be the basis of a new original podcast, which starts from the conviction that our grandparents’ generation is a source of wisdom, humor and talent.

Clothes – knitting, crocheting, knitting, garments, leather, tailoring, dyeing, bleaching hippie, etc.
beverages – brandy, brandy, sour cherry, wine and other homemade drinks
prescription – pickles, marmalades and jams, zacusca, preserves, turtles, invented new recipes, etc.
Beauty – face masks, hair masks, creams, soaps
Gardener’s: hedge trimming, plants on the staircase, small greenhouses, layers in the block etc
Health – tinctures, medicinal plants, poultices, medicines
DIY – furniture, wooden gates, fences, carpentry, constructions, fountains, etc
Other creative activities.

Retro Radio is a nationally covered audio project that will be available to the general public in a series of original podcasts. We reconstruct, from stories and parables, the precious creative culture of our grandparents. Their knowledge and skill is an important cultural and social resource. Too complicated for the “ready made” generation, but common in any Romanian family, artisanal creativity capitalizes on the most special series of “family secrets”: from gobelin patterns or intricate weaves, to carpentry techniques, “faultless” procedures beauty, along with secret recipes for pickles, zacusca, cakes or jams, all “homemade” and all keeping a different kind of identity compared to the already commercial “home made.” The project is funded by the Ministry of Culture, in within the National Culture Day program.

Team. Founding member of the indie band Toulouse Lautrec, Cătălin Rulea has been collaborating for many years in theater, contemporary art or ecology projects. Ruxandra Maniu is one of the most versatile and present actresses of the young generation, she is part of the Odeon theater troupe, she won the Grand Prize of the Hop Gala and she collaborated with important directors. Sillyconductor is present at the most important contemporary music events of the last ten years, and Ioana Păun is a theater and performance artist known for her incisive works and approaches, with a social stake. Composer Diana Miron is known for her contribution to the soundtrack of the film Touch me not, awarded the Golden Bear in 2018. Flavia Giurgiu has worked with important theaters and avant-garde directors, being one of the most daring voices in the performing arts in our country. Sorin Dobrin – member of the team of Cristi Puiu’s latest film, has experience in both film and theater, as well as in civic involvement projects.