Artists: Ioana Cîrlig
13.11-16.11.2025
GRAND PALAIS – Voices Section presenting Ioana Cîrlig
Booth C53
Anca Poterasu Gallery and ARAC took part in Paris Photo 2025 within the Voices Section, curated by Devika Singh. We presented a solo exhibition by Ioana Cîrlig, showcasing her long-term project The New Empire—a powerful visual investigation of our complex and often uncanny relationship with nature, initiated in 2017.
“Should the Earth become inhospitable to human life, might plants evolve and mutate to reclaim it, restoring humanity to its rightful place within the vast scale of the universe? Faced with imminent extinction, will humans seek new spaces to conquer, inhabit, and tame? Does humanity’s imperial mindset toward Earth and future worlds ultimately lead to its downfall?” (from curatorial text written by Julie Bonzon for The New Empire exhibition in Bucharest)
Ioana Cîrlig (b. 1987, Bucharest) studied Cinematography and began working as a photojournalist while still in school. Since 2011, she has been a freelance photographer, developing personal long-term projects that focus on the industrial landscape and the relationship between humans and nature in rural Romanian communities. The New Empire project has been presented in Bucharest by Anca Poterașu Gallery with a solo show curated by Julie Bonzon (2024), and in Timișoara at the Art Encounters- My Rhino is Not A Myth Biennale, curated by Adrian Notz (2023) been exhibited in: Kunsthalle Bega (Timisoara, 2025); Noorderlicht Biennale-Machine Entanglements (The Netherlands 2025), Creative Europe Forum (Paris, 2023), Nature Future European travelling exhibition (Cologne, Dusseldorf, Stuttgart, Berlin, Prague, 2022-2023), Kommunale GalerieCrossing the Same Circumstance exhibition (Berlin, 2021).
As part of the Paris Photo 2025 VIP Program, we organized a talk with Ioana Cîrlig on Saturday, 15 November, at 5 p.m., introduced by Devika Singh (Curator of the Voices Section) and Anca Poterasu, Hôtel de Béhague/ Ambassade de Roumanie, Paris, 123 Rue Saint-Dominique, 75007 Paris.
In addition to the talk, guests had the opportunity to explore a selection of works by artists from the gallery’s roster who work with photography, including Matei Bejenaru, Aurora Király, Iosif Király, and Ioana Cîrlig, all of whom have been featured in previous editions of Paris Photo.
The project is co-funded by the Ministry of Culture.
Partners: Ambassade de Roumanie
Photo credits: Ioana Cîrlig