KOMITI ✕ CLUJ ILLUSTRATORS

How did we come up with the initiative

The sheer feeling of uselessness started creeping on us as soon as we realised the gravity of the situation. This immediately lead to a spontaneous brainstorming on how we can help the community as well as convince them to stay indoors.

The message behind #staiacasă is very easy to understand and it was already adopted by everyone who wants to make a difference. We decided to approach it in a creative way, by combining our competences with the expertise of illustrators.

We did not want to depict the city as a deserted post-apocalyptic scenery. We much rather wanted to use the photos that we took with the empty streets to show how colourful they truly are, how optimistic they feel, and to ultimately convey a more soothing feeling.

The project started the moment we had the idea; we did not give it too much thought. Right now, we believe that speed is more important than perfection. We initially wanted to develop it completely in-house, but then we became curious about what our fellow illustrators could create.

It spontaneously took off as a collaborative project, with immense potential and reach that could extend beyond our expectations. At the moment, we are very happy to receive such positive feedback and we are already thinking about what our next steps will be.

How did we find the artists to draw the city?

There is unbelievable creative synergy waiting to be uncovered through collaborative work. We know what each individual artist can do, and we also know that working together brings more value to all of us. Our personal experience pointed us in this direction — for three years now, we are witnessing what we can do together in Komiti, as a team.

We enjoy experimenting and working with other artists. Pushing ourselves further in order to find new ways to approach our creative work is one of our goals for 2020.

We follow various creative people whose work we appreciate, both from Cluj and from the rest of the country, photographers as well as visual artists. For this specific project, we got in touch with a few illustrators. We received their replies in an instant. A couple of days later, we gathered 5 illustrations. After 2 more days, we added 3 more illustrations, then 11 more and now the album counts ~35 pieces of artwork.

Thank you:
Ciora Andreea, Andrea Stan, Pojum Edith, Lia Cucuianu, Alexandra Filimon, József Vass, Matei Iacob, Marius Mariș, Andra Karina Duca, Iulia Mitea, Rue Atelier, Smash Studio, Paul Alexandru, Alina Lipotchi, Stefania Stefanescu, Tatiana Rozdovanu, Gabriela Nicolae, Andreea Ilisai, Bianca Mocan, Ana Coroi, Anita Jambor, Alex Cioflica, Miklós Rita, Diana Marchis, Gabriela Preda, Mihai Bold, Robert Leonte, Roxana Oroian, Teodora Gabi, Maria Elisabeta Cucu, Silviu Ciora, Inya Serban, Georgeta Cristea, Robert Filip ++