Sculptures of Everyday Resistance: Improvised Acts of Ownership in Bucharest’s Streets

In Bucharest’s streets, improvised objects quietly mark invisible borders. Chairs, crates, stones, water bottles, or pieces of old furniture stand at the edge of parking spaces, each carrying the same silent message: “Nu parcați” - “Do not park.” These handmade signs turn everyday things into gestures of ownership and protection - small sculptures created not as art, but out of daily need.

They appear when their owners are away, keeping the space in their place, and disappear when they return. This constant coming and going reflects the rhythm of city life - the way people must always adapt, claim, and defend small pieces of space in a crowded world.

I admire the creativity and imagination behind these gestures: how people use whatever they can find to express themselves and make their surroundings their own. I photograph these objects as if they were sculptures - compositions shaped by necessity, yet full of character and form.

In this, I am inspired by Constantin Brancusi, who used photography not merely to document his sculptures, but to transform the act of seeing into an art form. Brancusi developed a distinctive photographic style to present his works in his studio, composing mobile groups of sculptures, pedestals, and objects. He sought total control over how his work was perceived, arranging his studio as an evolving composition - a living artwork in itself.

In my photographs of Bucharest’s improvised “sculptures,” I approach these found objects with a similar sensitivity. Like Brancusi in his studio, I treat the street as a living space of composition. I frame these objects with attention to light, form, and relation - transforming the ordinary into the symbolic. Though made by anonymous hands and shaped by necessity, these arrangements echo the same dialogue between material, space, and vision that Brancusi explored.