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From the travel
of Jonathan Harker by Joachim Koester
The Bargau Valley in Northeastern Transylvania provides the setting
for much of Bram Stokers novel Dracula (1897). Here Stoker situated
Count Dracula's Castle, Jonathan Harker's wolf haunted journey through
the Borgo Pass, and the last part of the novel concluding with the
beheaded Dracula evaporating into dust.
Bram Stoker never visited Transylvania but conducted extensive research
in the reading room of the British Museum. Studying travel accounts
and books on Transylvanian Folklore Stoker added excerpts from these
to his story, anchoring his imaginary scenes in a geographic region,
which at the time was considered to be one of the 'wildest and least
known portions of Europe.'
Spring 2003, I was invited to Iasis, Rumania, to participate in
the exhibition Prophetic Corners. Intrigued by the speculative nature
of the exhibition's title and concept - that some places have the
power of letting us see into the future - I traveled to Transylvania
and drove towards the Carpathians from Bistrita, just like Jonathan
Harker in Stoker's book.
I was not sure what I was looking for. My attention being equally
divided between an interest in this region that had been re-created
as a 'landscape of the mind' in countless films and narratives,
and the idea of 'prophetic corners' which also implied a mapping
of a somewhat invisible territory.
At the outskirts of Bistrita, which Stoker described as covered
with 'a bewildering mass of fruit blossom,' I passed a new development
of suburban houses. Enormous one-family houses in pastel colors,
most of them just completed with the windows covered in black plastic.
While the grey high-rises of Bistrita in the horizon and the absence
of people gave a slight edge to the scenery, it was also greatly
familiar. The houses looked no different than what I had seen anywhere
else, pointing to a future of all encompassing sameness.
The future might also be found in places that have been left alone
or forgotten, 'where everything that lies ahead seems like the past.'
On the way to the Borgo Pass, I came across ruined projects from
the communist era. Discarded among the trees were concrete remains
of washed away roads, light poles and even a four-story housing
development looming in disrepair. Halfway overgrown it looked like
a set from a sci-fi movie, like the obsolete in reverse.
My trip ended at Hotel Castle Dracula, built in 1982, to accommodate
a steady stream of vampire aficionados visiting the region, at approximately
the place where Dracula's Castle is located in Stoker's novel. The
area was not being haunted by 'the undead' though, but a series
of scandals involving illegal logging with profits benefiting a
group of corrupt government officials joining with local entrepreneurs.
Everywhere I looked, even on the remotest mountaintops, the landscape
showed signs of the logging industry in the form of treeless spots.
Spots that did add a post-historic touch to the surroundings, but
also pointed to something familiar from the past and present, the
transformation of a landscape by the forces of market economy.
Joachim Koester, 2003
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