Duae Lingua at the Romanian Cultural Institute

In Dialogue

Curator Daniela Holban with artists Adina Andrus, Alex Wolkowicz, Katya Grokhovsky, Lilian Shtereva, Elena Kalkova, and Luisa Tuntuc – Deputy Director of the Romanian Cultural Institute, at the *Duae Lingua* exhibition, Brâncuși Gallery, 2025. Image Courtesy of the Romanian Cultural Institute. © Johnny Vacar

The group show Duae Lingua at The Brâncuși Gallery in the Romanian Cultural Institute began as a personal reflection on curator Daniela Holaban’s migration journey from Romania to the United States and gradually evolved into a broader curatorial inquiry into dual identity and cultural translation through the lens of Eastern European women artists. “Initially, I was interested in the dissonance between linguistic and cultural fluency—how even after mastering a language, true belonging can remain elusive,” says Holban. In this interview with Art Spiel, Daniela Holban elaborates on how that concept became the foundation for the exhibition, using language as both metaphor and framework to explore themes of identity, memory, and assimilation.

Tell us a bit about yourself – how did you get into art curation?

I was born and raised in Romania and immigrated to the United States during my teenage years. That experience of cultural dislocation and adaptation shaped much of who I am and continues to inform my curatorial work. I’ve always been drawn to the arts—first through making, then through a deep desire to support other artists in sharing their visions with the world. I gradually moved from personal artistic practice into cultural programming and curation, where I found my passion for shaping narratives, creating platforms for dialogue, and building meaningful connections between artists and audiences.

Over the past 15+ years, I’ve developed and led public programs, site-specific installations, and artist initiatives across nonprofit spaces, museums, and alternative venues. My curatorial practice is rooted in themes of identity, self-reflection, and multipolarity—often drawing from my own dual identity as a Romanian immigrant. Much of my work explores migration, memory, and the liminal spaces between cultures, where individuals are constantly negotiating inner and outer contradictions. I often return to questions of belonging, tracing how it takes shape across geographies and histories, while incorporating both personal anecdotes and broader collective narratives.

In recent years, my curatorial lens has also expanded to include environmental consciousness. I believe the arts offer powerful tools for imagining more sustainable futures, and I’m interested in how artists help us interpret and respond to the climate crisis. This interest led to projects like REPOPULATIONS, a recurring exhibition inviting artists to speculate on ecology and future systems, and WE ARE NATURE, a public art series I co-produce that brings community together around eco-awareness and site-specific performance.

Curation, for me, is a form of care and inquiry: a way to amplify the voices of artists while also engaging with the pressing questions of our time.

Tell us about the evolution of this project.

As I spoke with other Eastern European women artists navigating similar experiences, the project expanded beyond autobiography into a shared narrative space. I realized the complexities I was grappling with—translating oneself across geographies, reconciling past and present, negotiating multiple cultural codes—were not singular, but part of a larger collective experience. This led me to curate a group of women artists from Eastern Europe whose works reflect their own nuanced journeys of migration, identity, and belonging.

Over time, Duae Lingua grew from a conceptual idea into a multi-voiced exhibition. The title—both a nod to the Latin phrase “two languages” and a playful reference to DuoLingo—captures the tension between what society promises about integration and the much deeper emotional, psychological, and cultural work it actually requires. The project continues to evolve through dialogue with the artists and audience, inviting ongoing reflection on what it means to live, speak, and create between worlds.

Let’s take a closer look at the art in the show.

Alex Wolkowicz (Germany/Poland) explores materiality and gives voice to objects through her interdisciplinary practice. Her works in the exhibition—Powder Pink Dancing Whip, Flogger, and Minty Cane (at ease)—examine tensions between attraction and repulsion, agency and vulnerability. Rooted in early experiences in theater and childhood memories, Wolkowicz transforms found materials into charged sculptural forms, creating environments that blur the lines between narrative, body, and space.

Elena Kalkova (Russia) addresses memory, resistance, and the complexity of belonging in her multifaceted practice. Her Familiarity Series—photo collages centering on women in her family, especially her grandmother—reflects on memory and memorylessness in the context of living under dictatorship. Through intimate memorials, Kalkova monumentalizes the intangible, exploring what is carried forward, what is forgotten, and what is erased in the liminal space between home and exile.

Adina Andrus (Romania) works across sculpture, drawing, and installation to investigate belonging and the visual culture of memory. Her series Some Things to Remember explores intentional memory-keeping in the context of migration and the search for belonging, transforming sensory recollections—such as the taste of a childhood dessert or the scent of a distant home—into sculptural vessels that reclaim and reframe the past. Presented in the exhibition are THIS IS NOT A TOMATO and WITH WHIPPED CREAM FROSTING, glazed ceramic works that reclaim the ephemeral textures of some of her Romanian memories through symbols and color.

Exhibition View: Works by Adina Andrus, *Duae Lingua*, Brâncuși Gallery, 2025. Image Courtesy of the Romanian Cultural Institute. © Johnny Vacar

Lilian Shtereva (Bulgaria) reimagines communal traditions through site-specific work inspired by the folkloric sedenkya—spaces for craft, storytelling, and social rituals. In A young maiden dances kopanitsa, one-two-three and To grandma Mata, in late summer, she incorporates repurposed hand-woven textiles from her hometown in Bulgaria. Her works reference heirlooms, dowries, and the symbolic weight of textiles passed through generations, offering a meditation on continuity, labor, tradition and memory.

Exhibition View: Works by Lilian Shtereva, *Duae Lingua*, Brâncuși Gallery, 2025. Image Courtesy of the Romanian Cultural Institute. © Johnny Vacar

Katya Grokhovsky (Ukraine) explores migration, displacement, and identity through a multidisciplinary practice spanning sculpture, installation, video, fiber, and performance. Her works Hers and Call Your Mother weave together found objects and family “hairlooms”—such as her mother’s apron and father’s socks—to create memory tableaux that bridge childhood memories and generational history. Grokhovsky’s tactile collages critically engage with personal and political narratives, offering spaces for resilience, empathy, and the fluidity of identity.

Exhibition View: Works by Alex Wolkowicz, Katya Grokhovsky, Duae Lingua, Brâncuși Gallery, 2025. Image Courtesy of the Romanian Cultural Institute. © Johnny Vacar

Tell us a bit about the venue.

Established in 1969 as the Romanian Library, the Romanian Cultural Institute (RCI) in North America is one of Romania’s oldest cultural diplomacy vehicles. The transformation from a library to a cultural center and, since 2004, a cultural institute has marked almost five decades of development and periodic reinvention.

The Brâncuși Gallery was inaugurated on September 17, 2021, following a comprehensive renovation of the Institute’s headquarters in the heart of Manhattan. Committed to supporting Romanian, Romanian-American, and international artists, the gallery serves as a dynamic platform within the New York art scene, highlighting contemporary global creativity. Its program fosters cultural dialogue and exchange through collaborative projects, emphasizing artistic innovation and cross-cultural connections.

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Duae Lingua at the Romanian Cultural Institute runs through May 30^th, 2025.
Duae Lingua features works by Adina Andrus (Romania), Katya Grokhovsky (Ukraine), Elena Kalkova (Russia), Lilian Shtereva (Bulgaria), and Alex Wolkowicz (Germany/Poland) @romanianculturalinstituteusa

About the curator: Daniela Holban (b. 1985, Bucharest, Romania) is a Romanian curator, cultural strategist, and nonprofit executive based in Brooklyn, NY. Her practice focuses on public programming, artist development, and site-specific initiatives that foster action-driven communities. Holban’s curatorial work explores themes of identity, self-reflection, multipolarity, and sustainability. She curates WE ARE NATURE, a summer series at NOoSPHERE Arts promoting environmental awareness, and oversees the Kingsland Wildflowers Residency Award. Her exhibition series REPOPULATIONS (2019 & 2022) was supported by the Brooklyn Arts Council. Named one of Brooklyn Magazine’s 50 Most Fascinating People of 2023, she serves as Deputy Director at NOoSPHERE Arts, is a Mentor at NEW INC, and the founder of cultural agency Plia Projects. Holban previously worked with the Metropolitan Museum of Art, MANA Contemporary, and the Fashion and Textile Museum, and co-founded ARTFARE INC. (2019–2023). Her network includes collaborations with The High Line, NADA, CalArts, BRIC, Residency Unlimited, Paradice Palase, and Art Dialogues Magazine. @daniela_holban