TITLE: The playground

When I was 19, I found myself confronting the end of childhood, and staring down the beginning of adulthood, which caused a violent disruption in everything I knew and was before. In an attempt to understand my own “ripening”, I started to document the changes in thought and action of my 4-year-old cousin Felix (now seven), who was growing up in a small village in Romania, which many generations of my family have called home throughout their lives.
In this quiet corner of Romania, subdued by transition and aging population, Felix spends his holidays living with my Grandmother, who almost never leaves the village. His childhood is quite untouched by modern technology, and instead, Felix grows and learns through traditional avenues. Rather than spending hours staring into a tablet’s glowing screen, he plays in the sand and finds joy in swimming in a small blow-up pool from the supermarket. He offers to teach me to ride the bike and finds himself mesmerized by the Milky Way in warm summer nights, while people from the village fill the dusty alleys on their way home from yet another evening of drinking with their neighbors.
By watching Felix’s games and reactions to the new, the unknown, I discovered a way back from the gradual shift into adulthood, in an effort to regain the raw, unaltered spirit cultivated during childhood. I would be the photographer—the storyteller—and he would act out the roles of various characters: a blonde little girl he named Lola, a dog, a cowboy or a firm young man. Time would be lost (or gained?) by make-believe situations that would put the anxiety of becoming on hold.

AUTHOR: Felicia Simion (Romania)

I am a 27-year-old visual artist and freelance photographer interested in Visual Anthropology and Storytelling, constantly looking for new ways to nurture self-expression. In 2016 I graduated from the Bucharest National University of Arts, Photography and Video department, and in 2018 I successfully completed an MA degree in Ethnology, Cultural Anthropology and Folklore at the University of Bucharest.
My artistic roots can be found during my childhood and adolescence, when I engaged with painting, music and writing. At the age of 13 I came across the works of Magnum photographers, which later became a representative moment in my evolution as a visual artist.
As a photographer, I tend to pursue a fine art approach to each genre I focus on at a specific time. I situate my work somewhere near the thin line between reality and fiction, easily floating from one side to another. In the last couple of years, I have withdrawn inspiration from Cultural Anthropology, exploring themes such as family, identity, dynamics of tradition or body.