Ioana Lupascu

zine , schrijven , Publicatie , Literair , LHBTIQ+ , internationaal , Experimenteel , DIY , Diaspora , Community , Autobiografisch , Artistiek onderzoek

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Ioana Lupașcu is a Romanian interdisciplinary artist based in Rotterdam. Their practice moves between writing, experimental publishing, facilitation and collective research, with a particular interest in rural knowledge and domestic practices. They are currently focusing on how diasporic knowledges and informal solidarities shape relational networks across villages and diaspora landing places.

Ioana develops printed zines and hosts writing groups and workshops as counter-archival platforms, using DIY and pedagogical methods. Their research-gatherings, such as Rural Relations and Food Is Political, foreground rurality, the politics of what we eat, and East European imaginaries. They have been a member of Seasonal Neighbours since 2020, are a co-founder/member of Burta Qollective since 2024, and a collaborator of Myvillages.

Found between Romania during the harvest season and the Netherlands, where they work as a print technician and bookseller with KIOSK Rotterdam, alongside independent cooking work, Ioana is interested in supporting small acts of resistance in the form of picking, writing, and printing.

They trained in architecture at ‘Ion Mincu’ University (2014), followed by a traineeship at the European School of Urban Game Design, Trust in Play (2020). They graduated from the Dutch Art Institute (2022) and are currently a fellow at WHW Akademija (2026).

**How Long is the Journey?** - How Long is the Journey? 2022 (poem), 2026 (installation), poem activated as a window intervention in What We Speak Of, WHW Akademĳa exhibition, curated by WHW & Ana Kovačić, KO:KE Gallery Space, Zagreb, HR. Photo: Sanja Merćep.

**Saintly Landscapes** - Ongoing series of drawings, coloured watercolour pencils on paper, 7 × 14.

**CORRUPT** - CORRUPT was a three-session writing workshop for people with connections to or an interest in rural places, exploring forms of intimacy, solidarity and refusal in post-socialist rural life. Drawing on Eastern European and queer feminist thinking, participants moved from discussion and writing exercises to editing and collective publishing, resulting in a shared zine. Initiated through the Rural Relations Writing Club, the workshops took place at WET and Kiosk Rotterdam. The title refers to Veda Popovici’s essay Solidarity in Illegality: How the Corrupt East Is Already a Queer East, and its understanding of corruption as a space of informal and often invisible solidarities beyond state and capitalist structures.

**The Case of the Suitcase // Burta Qollective** - The Case of the Suitcase is a 48-page experimental art zine and the debut publication of Burta Qollective (Ioana Lupașcu & Jiye Seong-Yu). Published and printed by Riso & Friends (Rijeka, Croatia), this three-color risograph zine explores the shared diasporic experience, memory, and migration through the lens of food smuggling. Born from a cross-cultural bond over carrying food from home, the project documents the humorous and tender realities of navigating borders. It features a compilation of real iMessage conversations, illustrations, and food memories—capturing the intricate art of packing cross-continental suitcases and the relatable "tug-of-war" between over-packing parents and adult children. Printed in a limited edition of 200 copies with a fold-out poster, the publication layers doodles with English, Croatian, Korean, and Romanian text.

**Binnenland** - Postage stamps, photographs of rural Romanian landscapes produced through the Dutch postal system's custom stamp service. Exhibited at Farmers' Market, finissage of Rerooting in the Polder with Wapke Feenstra, Casco Art Institute, Utrecht, NL.

**Rural Relations Writing Club / With This Body Of** - Rural Relations Writing Club is a self-organized writing group initiated by Ioana Lupașcu with support from Seasonal Neighbors and Myvillages, and hosted at the studio of Wapke Feenstra. The group explores rurality, post-socialist contexts, migration, language, memory, and everyday forms of connection. It comes together through shared meals, translated poetry, writing, reading, peer feedback, and collective editing, creating space for people with different relationships to rural life and to writing. With This Body Of (2026) is the collective publication emerging from Season 2, developed through six months of writing, editing, and collective making. The publication was produced with Multi Tool Press at Kiosk Rotterdam. Image by Indra Gleizde.

Harvest -- artist publication and collective workshop, KIOSK Rotterdam, NL. — **Harvest** - A zine bringing together photographic research from rural Romania, later transformed through a collective workshop where participants created postcards from extracted fragments. Presented during Groot Rotterdams Atelier Weekend 2024 at KIOSK Rotterdam. Photo credit: Ioana Lupașcu.

**Seasonal Matters Rural Relation, (Field)notes on rhythms, rituals and cohabitation** - What if we reconsider contemporary rural challenges through relationships rather than oppositions? Based on seasonal work experiences, Seasonal Matters Rural Relations delves into the realm of contemporary agriculture and European labour migration. Through a variety of discursive formats, ranging from essays and interviews to drawings and recipes, this book explores the socio-political implications on rhythms, rituals, and cohabitation in Europe's countryside. Seasonal Matters Rural Relations encourages a layered conversation between agricultural workers, engaged citizens, artists, and designers. With contributions by: Claire Chassot, Jonathan De Maeyer, Anastasia Eggers, Fernando Garcia-Dory (Inland), Ciel Grommen, Pia Jacques, Carolien Lubberhuizen, Ioana Lupascu, Sébastian Marot, Karolina Michalik, Yacinth Pos, Caroline Profanter, Maximiliaan Royakkers, Ines Marita Schaerer, Arnd Spahn, Mona Thijs and Ewoud Vermote. Editor: Anastasia Eggers, Ils Huygens Author: Seasonal Neighbours Graphic: Bonsma & Reist Publisher: Onomatopee

**Ghosts in Town** - Event on the 22nd of October 2023 in Wortel Dorp (Be), as part of “dorpsmakersfestival” organised by Ar-Tur, a platform for architecture and space in the Kempen. Contributors: Jonathan De Maeyer, Ioana Lupascu, Claire Chassot & Tijana Petrovic What can we do as village dramaturgs in Wortel? How are/can rural conditions in Western and Eastern Europe (be) linked? What makes a house a home?

**Fruiting Bodies (Sound installation in 4 chapters, 12’55’’)** - The installation is a sonic exploration of the interconnectedness of taste, desire, and decay. It takes inspiration from mycelium structures as a means to distribute, and disturb communication means between learned experiences, interative reactions and conclusions in regards to contemporary food consumption, cravings, and taste. Formally, the site-specific installation is a choreography of interwoven networks of cables embedded into the landscape of the botanical garden in Bergamo. Four sonic chapters are accessible via a multi-point splitter for headphones. Earbuds dressed in fungi-like shapes leak sonic content into the space. The audience is invited to connect and disconnect to the extended structures while noticing the surrounding environment. Text: Ioana Lupascu Sound Composition: Maoyi Qui Voice: Lacey Verhalen, Nash Caldera, Afrang Malekian * The project text takes inspiration from the following texts: T is for Taste, Colleen C. Myles, musings food feminism fermentation, Bubbling Bodies and Queer Microbes: Dispatches from the Foundation for Fermenting Fervor by Stephanie Maroney & SE Nash, Something That's Dead by Jessica Bebenek. * Photos by Maoyi Qui

**What is the temporality of a fleeting desire? (Audio work. Text. Performance. Workshop)** - The work explores the notion of residual intimacy, ecology, memory and desire. In a smoky room under the spell of a moody soundscape, spheric water marbles orient the space, water drops mark the concrete floor falling from a sheer textile while five pairs of friends explore, one at a time the installation space. The room becomes a playful mess. The installation performance comes to an end with a collective clean-up. The first iteration was presented at Centrale Fies, Dro, Italy. (part of MA at Dutch Art Institute) maybe it’s more like sleepwalking: snippets of conversation with Raffia Li sound tech: Derek M F Di Fabio sound piece feedback: Chiara Pagano pairs: Iliada & Dande, Cristina & Gleb, Nash & Nahram, Marika & Dakota, Ioana & Maoyi performers (ice—flickers) Rhode, Alex, Isa Mirjam, Liza, Maud, Emmeli, Lacey end song: Yves Tumor - Limerence

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