Image from Râsu’-plânsu’ © Aga Łuczakowska.
Moments of sensitivity and symbolism in the everyday environment infuse Łuczakowska’s self-published book, Râsu’-plânsu’.
The Romanian phrase râsu’-plânsu’ (‘laughing through tears’) describes the ability to discover moments of tenderness, irony and resilience within hardship. In Aga Łuczakowska’s beautifully produced 60-page softback, the phrase becomes less historical explanation and more invitation – a brief, immersive encounter with a different way of reading place, memory and the traces people leave behind.
Rather than offering an exhaustive account of former president Nicolae Ceaușescu’s dictatorial programme of forced relocation and urbanisation, Râsu’-plânsu’ operates as a poetic meditation. Across a decade living in Bucharest, Łuczakowska photographed fragments of the city on her way to work and during weekends, allowing the rhythm of everyday life to reveal the quiet contradictions embedded within the built environment.
Her black-and-white images look beyond the imposing concrete structures of the dictatorship’s housing estates to uncover the persistence of older memories and personal histories. A seemingly cheap floral blanket hanging from a washing line becomes a quietly profound image, the chintzy pattern carrying echoes of folk tradition and a rural imagination within the stark geometry of brutalist modernity. Elsewhere repeated fragments of domestic bric-a-brac appear, boxes, broken metalwork, objects that feel both lost and preserved, brittle yet enduring.
Râsu’-plânsu’ asks the viewer to slow down and look differently. Its power comes not from scale or completeness, but from the intimacy of its observations
Łuczakowska’s work excels in its sensitivity to these small, almost imperceptible signals. She photographs not simply what is present but evidence of adaptation within an imposed architectural order. A quiet, understated book, Râsu’-plânsu’ asks the viewer to slow down and look differently. Its power comes not from scale or completeness, but from the intimacy of its observations, which reveal how memory, identity and human resilience persist within spaces designed to transform them.
In a neat twist on the basic premise, Łuczakowska has also asked artists to adapt her publication, inviting them to add drawings or pages, or cut into existing images. Allowing the project to expand beyond her authorship, she has named this ongoing project Râsu’-plânsu’ Interventions, embracing a decentralisation of power – an anti-authoritarianism – that even extends to her own work.