Alina Teodorescu
February, 2026
Alina Teodorescu is a multidisciplinary artist whose practice reimagines alternatives for a living future through collaborative, social and environmental projects that involve artistic fieldwork, research and connection with local communities. As an artist with Romanian roots and international experience, she combines her interest in the preservation of the Romanian traditional heritage with projects that facilitate interdisciplinary collaboration between artists, scientists and communities in need.
Working across sculpture, video, photography, performance, site-specific interventions and participatory installations, her practice critically reflects on urgent ethical questions surrounding climate change, habitat loss, collective responsibility and sustainability. She is the founder of In Context Slănic Moldova, where she has led research-based collaborations addressing migration and environmental degradation.
Alina has participated in exhibitions and residency programs across Europe, America and Asia, with a focus on climate activism, innovative material reuse and socially engaged art.
During her time in Bangkok, she is developing a new project in collaboration with the Nang Loeng community. The resulting work will be presented at Bangkok 1899 for a limited time.
This residency is in collaboration with with Nammon Welployngam, Palm Ratanasatien, the Nang Loeng Community and Chulalongkorn University students (Faculty of Fine and Applied Art).
ปลุกเสก: Community Alchemy
A Project by Alina Teodorescu, Nawarat “Nammon” Welployngam, Tharinee “Palm” Ratanasatien & the Nang Loeng Community with the participation of Chulalongkorn University students (Faculty of Fine and Applied Art)
February 25 - March 4, 2026
The exhibition “ปลุกเสก: Community Alchemy” proposes a participatory act of symbolic revaluation. Instead of extracting new resources, the project invites participants to apply gold leaf to discarded wooden furniture from Satri Julanak School, one of Thailand’s historically progressive educational institutions. The school, founded in the early 20th century during the expansion of modern public education under reformist leadership, has since closed, leaving behind material remnants of its pedagogical legacy.
The school is located in Nang Loeng, one of Bangkok’s oldest communities and home to Talat Nang Loeng (established in 1900). While centrally located, Nang Loeng faces socio-economic precarity shaped by insecure land tenure, aging population structures and reliance on small-scale informal commerce. Like many historic urban communities in Bangkok, it navigates redevelopment pressures and declining economic stability while maintaining strong intangible cultural capital. Limited formal investment in infrastructure and youth opportunities increases vulnerability to displacement and social fragmentation.
Educationally, Nang Loeng has historically benefited from proximity to institutions, yet intergenerational economic instability and urban transition have constrained upward mobility. Community-based cultural initiatives have emerged to compensate for limited structural support, using art and participatory programming to reinforce social cohesion and informal learning pathways.
Against this background, “ปลุกเสก: Community Alchemy” does not treat gold as luxury, but as a tool of symbolic activation. By collectively gilding abandoned school furniture, participants engage in a ritual of transformation: shifting discarded objects from waste status to charged cultural artifacts. This act reframes value — not through extraction, but through attention and collective intention.
Thousands of schools in under-developed communities are closing annually, despite the current urgent need for reform in education to include climate literacy, material consciousness and change management to include those who suffer the most from the environmental changes.
Partners & Supporters: Bangkok 1899, Na Café, Creative Migration, Satri Julanak Foundation, Chao Phraya Thammasakmontri Foundation, The British Council in Thailand, Embassy of Romania in Bangkok.
