Aurelia Mihai

This book documents, among other things, the most recent video work of the Romanian artist Aurelia Mihai, in which she reflects on the periodic migration of herds of sheep (transumanza), a practice now banned by new EU laws on animal transport. However this is a traditional method of sheep rearing that is a normal ethnic act and part of the cultural identity of many European peoples. Aurelia Mihai portrays and transfers these old traditions to the modern era. Equally, she examines the medium of film and the production process itself. Caught between fiction, daydream and (pseudo-)documentary, the viewer is entranced by the ostensible, almost scientific plausibility and the authentic fascination of the camera view as well as by the imagination of this suggestive portrayal.