Celula X Carol 53

In The New I.R.A., Oana Moruz Chilariu starts from her research into the industrial site I.R.A. – Întreprinderea de Reparații Auto / Auto Repair Enterprise, part of the Valea Sucevei complex: a space that was once active, populated, and functional, and is now visibly affected by decay. The exhibition looks at how an abandoned industrial site continues to exist after losing its original function. What remains of a factory once its activity disappears? What traces are left behind by labor, by the movement of people, by utilitarian architecture, and by the objects that remain on site? The works propose a form of visual and symbolic recovery of this space. Through mixed media on canvas — layered washes, chromatic contrasts, textures, and zones of tension — the artist recontextualizes fragments of architecture, urban memory, and degraded matter. Alongside the works, an installation with objects recovered from the factory brings into the exhibition part of the site’s real materiality: remnants, traces, fragments that no longer belong to a functioning industry, but still preserve its memory. The New I.R.A. does not propose a nostalgic restoration of an industrial past, but a visual investigation into transformation, abandonment, and urban identity. In the absence of a physical reactivation of such sites, the exhibition opens another possibility: to look at them, document them, and reinscribe them into the present.