ILINA SCHILERU

Interested in the structure of social bonds, Ilina Schileru adopts ethno-historical approaches across various artistic media. She investigates the ways in which stories bring communities together, the meanings conveyed through popular culture — from oral traditions to documented and reinterpreted forms — and how these become alternative forms of knowledge for children and adults, such as fairy tales or fiction. She explores how people reformulate their reality through a magical lens, transferring responsibilities outward. She approaches these themes through charcoal drawing, photography, video, and at times, performative actions.

For September 2025, she is preparing a small series of works that question her own perception of the recent past under the sign of temporary migration to the West (Paris, within a master’s program in political science), and the subtle yet profound impact of an Eastern European culture still marked by symbols (through forms of ethnographic documentation).

The works interrogate not only memory, but also the personal mythology of inhabiting two worlds — one urban, rationalised, and secular, and the other still infused with religious fetishes, informal beliefs, and social structures deeply rooted in tradition.

Bio – Ilina Schileru 2025

Ilina Schileru is a visual artist, a graduate of the Master’s program in Graphics at the National University of Arts in Bucharest (2010). She coordinates the independent space MNTRplusC, a contemporary art program carried out under the aegis of the National Museum of the Romanian Peasant. MNTRplusC supports international collaborations between the Romanian art scene and artists or curators from the diaspora or abroad.

She is a member of the Union of Visual Artists of Romania and the founder of EBienale, a project developed in association with the George Enescu International Festival and Competition. In 2022, she curated the parallel event dedicated to representing Roma communities at the 59th Venice Biennale, organized by ERIAC (European Institute for Roma Art and Culture).

Since 2018, she has been collaborating with NGOs for the integration of immigrant and refugee children through art programs developed in partnership with museums and institutions such as MARe (Museum of Recent Art), MNAR (National Museum of Art of Romania), British Council, among others.

She is also part of the artist-run space ETAJ, with which she has participated in five international art fairs in cities such as Milan, Stockholm, Madrid, Budapest, and Aarhus, as well as in Los Angeles, in collaboration with Durden and Ray.