My PhD — Festivalization of Light Art: the refraction of light art from museum space toward public space (UAD, 2022) — is one of the few academic treatments of Light Art as a distinct genre. It maps a field that had never been fully mapped: a working definition, a three-generation history, a taxonomy of forms, and an anatomy of the global festival ecosystem.
The research is grounded in field work: seventeen light festivals attended across Europe with insider access during the doctoral field research (2017–2019), roughly ninety-eight festivals catalogued worldwide, and recorded interviews with artists and festival makers including Luke Jerram, Alessandro Lupi and Studio Toer.
Two research directions
DIRECTION A
Light Art, perception & festivalization
Doctoral thesis (2022) — one of the few academic treatments of the genre · original definition and taxonomy of Light Art · ecosystem map with ninety-eight festivals catalogued · field research at seventeen festivals across Europe (2017–2019) · publications and conference record from GLOW to IBSIC.
DIRECTION B
Creative Entrepreneurship & cultural ecosystems
Sustainable artistic practice and professional autonomy for artists · Creative Entrepreneurship teaching at UAD Cluj-Napoca · institutional and funding models — TRI-CREATES (Horizon Europe), Artpreneur UAD, Generation NEXT · research-informed education projects.
SHARED METHOD
Direct observation → framework → application. The research feeds the works, the teaching and the festival — and each feeds back new questions. Planned here: downloadable thesis, papers and CV (waiting on public links).
The central claim
Light Art is a self-standing avant-garde genre — with its own history, practices, market, institutions and validation mechanisms — currently in transition from the museum to the festival as its primary medium of reception.
The thesis models this shift through the physics of refraction: just as light changes direction and speed when crossing between two media, an artwork changes its reception and its validation when it moves from consecrated art spaces into public space.
Original frameworks
Publications
Festivalization of Light Art — PhD thesis, University of Art and Design Cluj-Napoca, 2022
Urban Comics as a Research Method and Tool in Social Innovation — Journal of Media Research, vol. 15, 3(44), 2022
Activating Values In Urban Transitions: A Novel Approach to Urban Innovation in Romania — PUNKT, 2022
Teaching
Advanced Explorations in Sculpture · Experimental Techniques — MA Sculpture, UAD Cluj-Napoca
Cultural & Creative Entrepreneurship — MA Theoretical Disciplines, UAD Cluj-Napoca
Guest lectures on cultural PR and artistic entrepreneurship — Babes-Bolyai University
Head of the Sculpture Department since 2024 · guiding art students toward sustainable creative careers
Research projects
Tri-Creates — Horizon Europe / EIT HEI project on regional entrepreneurship in higher arts education — project director for UAD, 2025
(in)VISIBLE / OurCluj — Botnar Foundation research grant on creative documentation and community engagement — general coordinator, 2020–2022
Generation NEXT: Art of the Future — emerging-artists platform funded by Cluj-Napoca — project director, 2024–2025
Field research
Festivals studied on site: Fete des Lumieres Lyon · GLOW Eindhoven · Amsterdam Light Festival · Festival of Lights Berlin · Signal Prague · Lumiere London · Fjord Oslo · Lichtfestival Gent · Lumina Cascais and more
Recorded interviews with Luke Jerram, Alessandro Lupi, Studio Toer, Marko Bolkovic (Visualia), sociologist Manuel van Hoben and ArtLight editor Helena Horn
Member of the ILO — International Light Festivals Organisation — since 2018