The Fall of Enthusiasm

The Fall of Enthusiasm
Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield
25.12.2014 – 7.1.2015

OPEN LETTER
To Romanians and other enthusiasts of democracy

Get out of Europe!

..Only joking.

25 years ago I joined your revolution. As a student I came to Bucharest to make a film in the name of enthusiasm. I commenced it whilst Ceausescu was still in power, shooting clandestinely all over Romania. I have returned quite a few times since. In the process gathering many hours of footage capturing fragments of destruction, of beauty, of traversal.

And now… what to do with the footage?

What’s important to me is the question whether the promise of democracy has been redeemed, and what difference to the concept of freedom has been made. To which end I propose a series of open-ended discussions seminars and screenings.

I want to share the film I’ve shot. To expose it to your views.

And then there’s the contemporary moment. The British government making it a condition of our staying in the EU that one of its founding principles be crossed out: the free movement of its peoples – and that means you, the Romanians.

I resist this. Where do you stand?

Over the course of the next two weeks the doors of ODD will be open to all-comers. Artist or researcher, philosopher or fan, student or parent, you are welcome. From the birthday of Ceausescu’s end, 25 December 2014, to 7 January 2015, midday to midnight every day you can wander in and talk watch listen – or dance.

The pathology of enthusiasm, the aporia of democracy its chance and risk, the renewal of philosophical nationalism, the necessary failure of communism, wherefore being-in-common?, the gallery space as theatre hall of history – these are the sorts of things we can talk about.

Texts are available for download… but above all else I invite you to read Fernando Pessoa’s Ultimatum! of 1917.

“Europe wants to go from being a geographical designation to a civilized person!”

Love

Jonathan Lahey Dronsfield

Media partners of this project