The Q-Arts Association established the Museum of Abandonment in 2021, a digital and participatory forum-museum aiming to map out the culture of abandonment and offer a historical narrative of the abandonment and institutionalization of children in Romania. The Museum of Abandonment is the first digital museum in Romania, containing immersive and virtual reality exhibitions, but above all it is a platform that opened the much-needed dialogue about the immense trauma of abandonment in Romania.
As part of the humanitarian intervention carried out by CARE, together with the SERA Romania Foundation and FONPC, in support of Ukrainian refugees, Q-Arts Association ran a journalistic and educational project entitled The Suitcases of Abandonment. The project has achieved the archiving of dozens of stories about one of the most difficult forms of abandonment, the one that refugees feel when they are forced to abandon their country, home, family, life as they knew it to flee the path of war. The Suitcases of Abandonment is a social mediation project aimed at raising awareness of the trauma caused by war in order to facilitate integration, tolerance and acceptance.
The Suitcases of Abandonment is a communication and emotional campaign that talks about the most dramatic moments in an existence, those when external and uncontrollable forces lead you to abandon everything: family, friends, home, the place where you live or work, the community, the little habits, the existence as you know it… and in rush you put in a bag what you think you can save.
It is a project initiated by the Museum of Abandonment, which thus wanted to archive the histories and emotions of one of the most dramatic events in recent European history – the conflict in Ukraine. We have collected and archived into a digital gallery nearly 50 of such stories of the Ukrainian refugees, which emotionally map their journey over this past year.” – Oana Drăgulinescu, founder of the Museum of Abandonment.
