"Accidental Meeting with Ioana Nemeș" is the third performative reading organized in connection with the exhibition "Rituals, Shelter, and Storms" by the late artist Ioana Nemeș. It brings together writer Adriana Babeți and actress Christine Cizmaș to share with you some excerpts from Virginia Woolf's writings, the coincidences that govern these accidental encounters, and passages from their own journals that punctuate existence.

Important: We encourage the audience to bring a "sample" from their own journal and to discuss together about time.

Adriana Babeți is an emeritus professor at the West University of Timișoara and an associate professor at the University of Bucharest, where she teaches comparative literature; she is also an editor at the Orizont magazine. She has co-edited, with Cornel Ungureanu, the anthologies "Central Europe: Neuroses, Dilemmas, Utopias" (1997) and "Central Europe: Memory, Paradise, Apocalypse" (1998). Among her published works are "The Woman in Red" (1990, with Mircea Mihăieș and Mircea Nedelciu, now in its sixth edition and included in high school literature manuals); "Lost Battles. Dimitrie Cantemir, Reading Strategies" (1997); "Dilemmas of Central Europe" (1998); "Arahne and the Web" (2002); "Dandyism. A History" (Polirom, 2004); "Le Banat: An Eldorado at the Confines" (coordinated, University of Paris IV – Sorbonne, 2007); "Amazons. A Story" (2013), and "Dictionary of Central European Novel of the 20th Century" (coordination, 2022). Her volumes have received numerous national awards, and her activity has been distinguished with the Order of Knight of Arts and Letters of the French Republic, the Order of Cultural Merit in the rank of Knight awarded by the President of Romania, and the title of Honorary Citizen of Timișoara. Additionally, for her academic and teaching activity, she has been rewarded with significant national and international prizes.

Christine Cizmaș is a founding member of the independent theater group AUĂLEU - Garage and Courtyard Theatre. In the 18 years since AUĂLEU's existence, Christine has acted, written, sung, administered, cleaned, served, lived, suffered, worked, and enjoyed the choice she made when she was younger. She is a free person, in life and in profession. She dared to dream. Among other performances, she played in "Libertatis Captivantus Est," "Brainwasher," "Circus Mundi," "Animal Farm," and "Grand Hostel Timișoara." She has performed continuously regardless of the number of people in the audience—be it in abandoned houses, tents, streets, weddings, public squares, under bridges, or in renowned halls. She has won awards, declined some, and this year, alongside the AUĂLEU team, she wins the Special Prize for Resistance and Creativity in Independent Theater, awarded by UNITER. She speaks four foreign languages, has three pets, dances tango, co-presented the Opening of Timișoara's Cultural Capital 2023 with Ioana Bugarin, and contributed a film to the Closing Ceremony.

The event is organized by the ArtEncounters Foundation in collaboration with La Două Bufnițe Bookstore.