Domestic Products—Temps d’Images Festival—Independent Performing Arts Platform—Cluj, Romania
Channel: HowlRound Theatre Commons
Date: 2017-03-28

Temps d’Images Festival / Independent Performing Arts Platform in Cluj, Romania presents She’s a Good Boy by Compania 28, Cunthate [ură] by BÉZNĂ Theatre, and Domestic Products livestreaming on the global, commons-based peer produced HowlRound TV network at howlround.tv Thursday, November 12 to Saturday, November 14. 

Domestic Products
Saturday, November 14 at 21:30 EET (Cluj, Romania) / 20:30 CET (Paris) / 19:30 GMT (London) / 2:30pm EST (New York) / 11:30am PST (Los Angeles).

In a country well-known for its export of domestic labour, hiring exotic in-house helpers is becoming a status symbol. Like many other Philipinos, Joy comes to Romania in order to support her family. The intermediating agency places her as a nanny for the two children of an affluent family. All goes well, until one day the father of the family comes on to her. When Joy complains to the wife, instead of confronting her husband, she comes up with an intriguing proposal. Soon, Joy finds herself trapped in a domestic cage. What started out as a favour to her employers is from now on demanded of her. Gradually, Joy becomes their domestic slave. This story is inspired by a real case. The real-life Joy lives in Bucharest, Romania. 

Like her, hundreds of Filipinos in Romania struggle with a system which fails to acknowledge domestic work. Although Domestic Products is based on the experience of migrant women, it tells the story of all women and speaks about the real price of domestic and reproductive labour. Domestic Products speaks against the sexualization of domestic work.

Concept, directed by: Ioana Păun
Written by: Xandra Popescu
With: Ioana Flora, Smaranda Nicolau
Investigation: Laura Ștefănuț
Movement: Carmen Coţofană
Music: Cătălin Rulea, Diana Miron
Producer: Ioana Păun, co-producţie WASP
Website: www.creativelaboratories.ro/produsedomestice/

Ioana Păun (b. 1984) is a theatre director. She works on subjects related to the behaviors of turbo-capitalism. All Workers Go To Heaven (Theatre Royal Stratford East, Londra 2012), Economia Disperării (The Mexican Museum in Chicago 2013), and Indicele de Indignare (Letca Nouă and MNAC 2013) confront contemporary dystopias and imagine possible situations in which the participants end up co-existing for a limited period. Since 2012, Ioana has been working on a visibility platform for the “affection industry,” together with artists, journalists, nannies, and housekeepers. Recently, Ioana joined an international collective of artists and programmers that develop ways of hijacking cultural production systems, shifting focus away from the creator onto users and subjects. Presently, Ioana is undertaking her PhD and researches the possibilities of art democratization and the extension of participative forms into reality.

Xandra Popescu works as an artist, writer, and filmmaker. She studied Dramatic Writing at the National Theatre and Film University in Bucharest and has a a background in Political Science. Her work looks at personal issues from a political and poetical point of view. She has co-written three films together with Ștefan Constantinescu: Family Dinner and Six Big Fish as well as several other scripts and plays. At the end of 2012 she shot her first documentary film Pink Saloon. She sometimes works under the name Soyons Impossible together with artist and performer Larisa Crunțeanu. Together, they power Atelier35—a project space in Bucharest, committed to expanding the boundaries of contemporary art. Currently, Xandra lives and works in Berlin and Bucharest.

Laura Ștefănuț is a freelance journalist who worked for România liberă newspaper and Digi 24 TV station. She is presently collaborating with DoR magazine, Casa Jurnalistului, and the German media. She was the first journalist to write about the abuses of Filipino domestic workers in Romania. In 2013 she documented the issue in the US, with the help of a DoS grant.

Cătălin Rulea (n. 1979) is an artist and musician based in Bucharest. He is a founding member of the band Pixels and frontman of the band Toulouse Lautrec. As an artist he has had several exhibitions, the most notable being those in Kunsthalle (Vienna), Werkleiz Society (Halle), Cooper Gallery (Dundee), Fotogalerie (Vienna), Bucharest Biennial, Rex Cultural Centrum (Belgrade). He is a founding member of the Center for Visual Introspection and has worked with Alina Șerban, Arnold Estefan, and Anca Benera as part of the PLUS4 Association.

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