1. When you were invited to be a member of the jury that selected the project for the Romanian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale 2007, were any strategies or methodological norms regarding the evaluation procedure communicated to you? Can you detail?

2. What were the general criteria for selection and the priorities that you applied to the participating projects?

3. What were, in your opinion, the qualities that detached the winning project from the others?

4. Do you have any suggestions for improving the selection procedure?

 

 

1. Each member received the jury’s organization regulations where, at the Article 2 letter A, it was stipulated that the jury “decides upon the rules, criteria and expression modalities of the participating projects in the Contest”. On the other hand, no strategy regarding the selection of the projects was communicated to us.

 

2. The artistic quality, the compatibility with the exhibition space (the Romanian Pavilion), and the impact of the project in the context of the whole event (the Venice Biennale).

 

3. I would list the project's topicality, the conceptual discourse of the curator and, no doubt, the vote of the jury. The project was selected by consensus. According to the press release given by the Ministry, the vote was unanimous. However, considering the selection procedure we used, I think that this declared “unanimity” misleads somehow the nuanced options of the jury’s members.

 

4. a. The selection of the project should take place at least one year before the opening of the Biennale. So that if the jury decides that none of the projects is fully suitable, it can ask for a new deadline for submission of new projects.

b. The selection process should develop in two steps. First - the selection of three or four projects from the total number of the submitted projects; then, in another day, the discussion and the voting of the winning project. This procedure would enable each member of the jury to meditate upon and evaluate the choice he must take in all its aspects.