Arabidopsis thaliana – Nicholas DelRose, Toma Peiu, and Luiza Pârvu – USA – 2016 – 4 min

Arabidopsis thaliana juxtaposes the implications of injury, development and regeneration for plants, humans and cities, with a nod to one of the most popular plant model organisms in biology and genetics.

Post-Kirill – Toma Peiu and Luiza Pârvu – USA/Romania – 2018 – 11 min

What is it like to live at the intersection of two cultural empires, in times of hyper-mediation? This film playfully questions what it means to be a citizen and an artist in today’s Russia, and speculates on the heritage of Russian-ness on the art and history of the past century. A nod to Anne-Marie Miéville, Jean-Luc Godard and Chris Marker.

Sisyphus 2.0 – Toma Peiu and Luiza Pârvu – USA/Romania – 2016 – 7 min

“Drawing on Albert Camus’ eponymous text, Luiza Pârvu and Toma Peiu’s Sisyphus 2.0 is a visual compendium of humanity’s search for meaning. Made of real surveillance footage, the film assumes its perspective’s omniscience, beginning as a series of quotidian assemblages of ‘a day in a life’ of the global citizens, embraced by a voice-over retelling of the Sisyphus myth. With deep humanism and sensibility, Pârvu and Peiu question the meaning of the search, as man-made violence and natural cataclysms – the other side of humanity’s essential creative impulse – jolt the daily existence of the surveilled humans.” (Andrei T?n?sescu, BIEFF 2017)

Civilians – Toma Peiu and Luiza Pârvu – USA/Romania – 2017 – 34 min

Civilians shows New York City as the shelter of several distinct communities, leading unassuming lives in the metropolis. In units of sustained shots captured over one Thanksgiving week in the streets of five neighborhoods across the boroughs, the film bears witness to the present moment of the civil society from “the other New York” – under threat from gentrification and climate change.

 Surprise Screening!

 Recent works-in-progress by Toma Peiu and Luiza Pârvu

Luiza Pârvu and Toma Peiu have been working together since 2009. Their cinematic and installation narratives, produced in Europe, North America and Asia, capture moments of social, environmental or cultural transformation. Their work has shown in over 100 theaters and venues on five continents, from film festivals to multiplex theatres, schools and churches. Their first feature documentary film, Ubi Bene Ibi Patria (presently in post-production) is an autobiographically motivated “railroad movie”, featuring glimpses into the lives of several Romanian immigrants and their adopted communities in Western Europe and the US, capturing the social and political debates of the summer of 2016.

Nick DelRose is a Biology PhD student at New York University, studying root regeneration in plants. A graduate of Carnegie Mellon University, he received his bachelors in Biology with focuses in Developmental and Cell biology, and minors in Chemistry and Fine Arts.  His art and biology interests began at an early age when he became well-practiced in papier mâché and fascinated by the metamorphosis of caterpillar to butterfly. He has continued interest in the intersection between art and biology, and in science communications through 3D illustration and animation. In October 2016, he was randomly paired with Toma Peiu for the Symbiosis competition at the Imagine Science Film Festival in New York. Arabidopsis thaliana is the result of a 5-day creative process between them and filmmaker Luiza Pârvu.

Nature, Environment, Science & Technology (NEST) Studio for the Arts is a network of faculty, students, centers and campus units at the University of Colorado Boulder that combine artistic practice and scientific research to explore our common and disparate ways of observing, recording, experimenting and knowing. A series of cross-campus initiatives allow students to directly engage with faculty mentors and inspire alternate modes of communicating with the public.