The research I did was extensive as the subject matter is one I connect to, as my family are immigrants from Romania. The stories and sayings I heard at dinner tables and family gatherings, as well as the brief childhood I had in Romania, all became very relevant. I carried out research by watching TV coverage and looking through magazines and posters from communist, the Socialist Republic of Romania and post-communist Romania.

Often illustrated in TV coverage, socialist poems about the love of country, the socialist party and its leader are read whilst images of mountains are shown. The lie of an idyllic life is often portrayed, whilst the grey and depressing reality slips through the cracks.

Fascinated by the overlaying of information and visuals, I illustrated this sense of confusion in my designs. The romance of nature as a backdrop to an angry population, followed by sleepy post-communist freedom are all ideas I incorporated. Keeping in mind the target audience, I wanted to make it ‘visually relevant’ and used images of children from post-communist Romania who are now young adults, myself included.

I gathered all the visuals in busy collages, overlaying the post-communist children on top of facsimiles of the propaganda used by the communist regime, all on a backdrop of Romanian mountains.

As this project became of more interest to me, I designed heavily printed garments that would accompany this body of work. I aim to produce these in the future, following the slow rise of young artistic communities in Romania which are interested in exploring this subject matter.