Anna-Ilona Kiss

I finished my university studies as a cultural worker with a strong interest in anthropology and a less, but still important interest in ethnographic. My main interest consist questions about how can we encourage people to change their relation to cultural events and products, how can we break the traditional way of thinking that art is only theater and symphonic concert?! How can we encourage them to become active audience and in the same time realize that as a society we are responsible for how we educate our children in the terms of artistic and cultural education?!

At the moment I am working in two big cultural projects. One of them is the rehabilitation and restoration of the Bánffy Castle, Bonțida, Romania. The Transylvanian Versailles is one of the most well-known castle in the region, it is also a Built Heritage Conservation Training Center, a contemporary art center and I could go further. The second project is connected with new media, with 3D films, with virtual reality, all of them in a dome. Despite we are at the beginning of the project we are planning to give place to several cultural events in the dome, to grow as a new media center, to give new tools to schools for a better education, etc. Even though it is a long way, and a lot of work, I am fully dedicated to these goals because they represent the past and the future of our culture.

By my volunteering time at the YMCA Transylvania (2009 -), I had the opportunity to travel and visit different countries and understand that culture means totally different things to every one of us. Thanks to these opportunities as an anthropologist and cultural worker I have a wide perspective of what culture, art means, and how can we think about it nationally and internationally as well.