Trei Culori, 2008
video loop, 3’25”
Trei Culori (Three Colours), titled after the Romanian Communist anthem, is a video work that offers a subversive reimagining of historical memory and political imagery. At its core, the piece animates a moment of vulnerability and collapse, portraying the dictator not as an all-powerful figure, but as an individual slipping into unconsciousness while the anthem—once a symbol of national unity and ideological control—plays on. Rendered in a visual style reminiscent of Western satirical animation (pre-generative AI methods), the work deliberately departs from the rigid aesthetic of state propaganda. In doing so, it ventures into a speculative space—one where history can be visualised beyond the constraints of official documentation. By animating a moment that could never have been captured on film, the piece challenges the authority of state-controlled archives and reclaims space for alternative narratives. Rather than echoing the familiar tropes of power—parades, speeches, and orchestrated crowds, the work redirects the viewer’s attention to a more human, destabilising image: the failure of the symbol itself. The unconscious dictator becomes a metaphor for the collapse of ideology, exposing the fragility behind the carefully staged performances of control.
Trei Culori invites reflection on how we engage with historical fragments, particularly those mediated through film and propaganda. It suggests that what we often accept as collective memory is curated, performative, and incomplete. Through satire and speculative animation, the work opens a space for reinterpreting history—not as a fixed narrative, but as something malleable, shaped by omission as much as by presence. By unravelling the symbolic coherence of the anthem and its associations, the work interrogates how power is maintained through repetition, spectacle, and myth-making. In revealing what lies behind the curtain, Trei Culori compels us to question the aesthetics of authority and the mechanisms that construct and sustain political memory.