Social Fabric 2023
The umbrella programme of the Capital of Culture year: research and creation residencies, presentations, debates, workshops, theatre, documentary film, concerts, exhibitions and the football championship — in the palace courtyards and in Piața Traian.
For seven months, from June to December 2023, the interior courtyards of the Jakab Toffler Palace worked as an open stage. Social Fabric gathered research and creation residencies — some by invitation, others selected through an open call — and wove them together with public presentations, debates, workshops, theatre and documentary film evenings, concerts, exhibitions and the football championship in Piața Traian.
The thread running through all of it is the Fabric district: its built heritage and, above all, its unwritten one — neighbourly relations, habits, the stories that travel over fences. The programme proposed a physical and symbolic reimagining of shared space, starting from the simple idea that a historic building stays alive through the people who inhabit it.
Also in 2023, Casa Jakab Toffler joined the network of venues of Typo Passage TM, a micro-museum of graphic design and typographic art, with the "Typo Garden Milton Glaser" in the house garden, and hosted a workshop within the Minitremu Art Camp #8, on 6 and 7 July.
Social Fabric was part of the Timișoara — European Capital of Culture 2023 programme and was funded through Grow / Legacy Timișoara 2023 (the Ministry of Culture). Co-organiser: Minitremu.
Within this programme
Football in Traian 2023
F.I.D. at the BETA 2023 architecture biennale — a participatory installation and an amateur football championship in Piața Traian, as a platform for social cohesion.
co-LIZA 2.0. A residency with Atelier AdHoc
The first Social Fabric 2023 residency ended with co-LIZA 2.0 — a mobile community-activation kit designed for Casa Jakab Toffler and Minitremu.
Atelier VRAC. A first public presentation
Zenaida Florea and Cristi Bădescu presented their projects publicly for the first time in the house garden, followed by a discussion on the state of the architectural profession.
Carnaval de Traian. A residency with Arhiva de Sunet
The team behind the documentary podcast Arhiva de Sunet spent two weeks in Fabric with their microphones open. The result is a forty-minute special episode about Piața Traian.
Sport as an art form. A residency with Tom Russotti
A month-long residency and three non-competitive game workshops at the 2nd edition of "Football in Traian": a helium-ball game and a dance contest judged by the audience.
A photography residency with Marius Vasile
A month-long photography residency devoted to documenting the 2nd edition of "Football in Traian", by a photographer who had also shot the first edition.
A research residency with Ciprian Homorodean
From July to December 2023, artist Ciprian Homorodean worked at Casa Jakab Toffler on a research project addressing social, political and economic themes.
The corner shops. A residency with Sorin Valea
A visual-anthropology inquiry into Fabric's small commercial initiatives, which produced the interview with "Tanti Gabi", published in "Voices of Fabric" #2.
Neighbourhood journalism. A residency with Vlad Marko Tolea
The residency produced the text of the "Married vs Unmarried" exhibition and the major pieces in issue 2 of the newspaper "Voices of Fabric".
A Brick-and-Clay Oven. A project with Vasile Leac
Building a brick-and-clay oven with writer Vasile Leac — rediscovering an almost-forgotten craft as a pretext to bring people together around work and fire.
ceva de.plasat — ep. 1
Three days with the CEVA collective, teenagers from Târgu Neamț: a performance about collective identity and safe spaces, performative readings and a playwriting workshop for young people.
The TerraPIA workshop with Alessandro Serra
An earth-building workshop — clay soils, straw reinforcement — testing the plaster for a future bread oven, followed by a public talk on architecture made from natural materials.
Married vs Unmarried
A retrospective exhibition on the traditional amateur football match between married and unmarried men, begun in 1936 — an example of the Fabric district's intangible heritage.
Voices of Fabric
A neighbourhood newspaper published by Casa Jakab Toffler, born from Andrei Becheru's residency — 80+ interviews and photographs about how people live and remember the Fabric district.
Social Fabric – Activity Report
The activity report of the 2023 Social Fabric programme — residencies, workshops, exhibitions and events reimagining the Jakab Toffler palace courtyards and Fabric's heritage.