About

Nita Mocanu (b. 1977) is a distinguished visual artist whose work explores themes in social psychology, education, ecology, and contemporary philosophy, with a focus on new materialism. Her preferred media include poetry, photography, video art, and installation.

Between 1995 and 2002, she pursued studies in graphics and photo-video at the University of Art and Design in Cluj-Napoca. During and after her studies, she exhibited in Cluj-Napoca at venues such as Atas Gallery, Sindan Gallery, and Tranzit House, as well as internationally at the OK Center for Contemporary Art in Austria and the Performing Arts Festival in Izmit, Turkey.

From 2003 to 2008, Mocanu was a founding member of the media activism group D Media in Cluj-Napoca, where she primarily focused on video documentaries. Her works from this period were showcased in exhibitions including On Difference #1 Local Contexts-Hybrid Spaces at the Württembergischer Kunstverein in Stuttgart, Germany; Her Position in Transition at the Women Art Festival in Vienna, Austria; PERIFERIC 7 Biennial in Iași, Romania; and Social Cooking Romania at the ICR Berlin, Germany.

Since 2012, Mocanu has been dedicated to art education, developing numerous projects and activities in media education and contemporary art. Notably, she collaborated with teenagers for the exhibition “Subsol 16” with Kinema Ikon, which reached its second edition in 2019.

From 2014 onward, Mocanu’s works have predominantly intersected poetry and visual art, addressing issues in social psychology and contemporary philosophy, particularly new materialism. Her recent works explore topics such as social inertia, cognitive dissonance, the agency of objects, and non-anthropocentric human-world relationships. She has exhibited regularly at the Kinema Ikon space at the Museum of Art Arad and the Arad Media Art Festival. Significant exhibitions include “A World is Still Waiting to Be Built” at the Art Encounters Foundation in Timișoara, Romania; “On Words, Water and Things” at D Platform, Borderline Art Space in Iași, Romania; D Platform Season 2 at the Victoria Art Center in Bucharest, Romania; and “Notes on Tomorrow,” a traveling exhibition within the CreArt Europe project in cities including Kaunas, Lithuania, Kristiansand, Norway, and Aveiro, Portugal. Additionally, she participated in the Biennial of Contemporary Art Art Encounters in Timișoara.

Since 2016, Mocanu has collaborated with Marius Stoica on the etho.tk project, an online initiative centered on the metaphor of eto-tecture—exploring the invisible, worn, and beaten paths within networks of objects, things, and beings. This project has been featured in exhibitions such as “Interstitial Space” at ODD Gallery in Bucharest, Romania; “The Good Life” at the Liminal Festival of Art/ Science/ Technology at Cantacuzino Palace in Bucharest, Romania; and “The New Dictionary of Old Ideas” during the AiR program at MeetFactory in Prague, Czech Republic.

In recent years, Mocanu has concentrated on arts and education projects. In 2022, she founded the Doar Mâine (Only Tomorrow) Association, through which she has developed a series of large-scale initiatives. In 2023, the association launched the projects “Post-education. Pedagogies of Crisis” and “Only Tomorrow Speculative Lab” as part of the Cultural Program Timisoara 2023 European Capital of Culture.