Slobozia Texas
Barbara Debeuckelaere
Slobozia means freedom in Romanian but is also the name of a sleepy town in the east of the country. The project Slobozia, Texas (2020-21) relives the strange confrontation in the 80ies of Romanians under communist rule with Dallas, the legendary American campy soap. It shows oil-related landscapes, palace interiors and kitschy portraits. Slobozia has a permanent Dallas-vibe since a Romanian millionaire built a replica there of the family mansion in the soap. Ceaușescu allowed the airing of Dallas, which was at the time the only western fiction on state television. Allegedly because he thought the soap would prove to be anti-capitalistic with all its corruption, sorrows and misery. It backfired and according to some, Dallas even played a part in the Romanian revolution.
The aesthetics, the luxury, the way of life, the American dream – everything about the show exemplified the thing that Romanians did not have enough of under Ceaușescu’s regime: hope and dreams. Dallas was not innocent fictional entertainment, it carried cultural imperialist views on the world and how it should be run. In Slobozia, Texas, ordinary Romanians with a connection to the soap (people working in the Dallas Hotel or active on Dallas fan-sites f.i.) re-enact scenes of Dallas, being photographed in the unforgiving light of a soap opera set, dressed to kill, absorbed in their dreams of the past. They act and play themselves in the same image, they told me their stories, how it was then and how it is now. Blending fiction and reality, theatrical gestures, cinematic gazes, pastel colours, mirrors and eerie video stills, the images constitute a throwback to the hyper-capitalist 80-ies. Slobozia,Texas is visualizing a past moment of future hope while documenting the present.
Barbara Debeuckelaere (BE) is a visual artist and photographer. She is a master in Visual Arts, Photography (KASK Ghent, 2021), a master in International Politics and European Law (VUBrussel, 1992) and a master in Economy (KULeuven, 1991). She started her career in Dutch Guyana (Suriname) as a junior professor at the University of Paramaribo. After that she worked as a journalist, for newspapers De Standaard and De Morgen and from 2002 on she was recruited by the VRT-newsroom. First she worked for radio (Voor de Dag, Radionieuws) and from 2007 on for television (Terzake). For VRT she made reports and traveled regularly to countries like Iran and to the Middle- East. In 2014 she quit the VRT and decided to turn away from the news industry to focus on a more poetically driven perspective on the world, through visual art and photography. In her work she is searching to explore power relations, systemic thinking, capitalism and climate change, trying to avoid the general craving for the exotic. Her life partner is Koen with whom she has 3 children: Ambroos, Jeanne and Cecile.