Music, arts, history and traditions come together at ARTmania Festival!ARTmania Festival, ASTRA Museum Complex and Brukenthal National Museum continue their cultural partnership to offer festival goers a series of alternative events

July 23, 2024
ARTmania Festival, in collaboration with the ASTRA Museum Complex and the Brukenthal National Museum, complements the concerts on the festival days with a series of cultural events and creative activities.

At ARTmania Festival 2024, fans will be able to listen to some of the most popular artists of the moment in the Great Square in the old citadel of Sibiu: Borknagar (NO), Korn (SUA), Igorrr (FR), Spiritbox (SUA), Satyricon (NO), The Flower Kings (SE), Lavina (SRB), Alpha Q (RO), Awake the Demons (RO) and TAINE (RO).

The third festival day (Sunday, 28th July) stands under the “ARTmania in Context” sign and will bring together, for the fans, music and interdisciplinary collaborations, on the stage of Altemberger House – History Museum: Alternosfera (MD), REVOLTER (RO), Denorm (MD) and SPD (MD).

Music meets the others arts at ARTmania. 50% discount during the ARTmania festival (26 – 28 July 2024), based on the festival wristband, in the museums that are part of the Brukenthal National Museum in Sibiu.

To make the cultural experience complete, between concerts, festival wristband holders will be able to purchase half-price tickets to visit the museums or exhibitions available at the Museum of Contemporary Art, the European Art Gallery (Brukenthal Palace), the Romanian Art Gallery, the Museum of History (Altemberger House), the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Pharmacy or the “August Von Spiess” Hunting Museum.

Music meets traditions again. FREE access, based on the festival wristband, to the House of Arts, within the Museum of Traditional Popular Civilization “ASTRA” from Sibiu and to the events organized in the ASTRA Museum

The ASTRA National Museum Complex (Sibiu Village Museum) continues its cultural partnership with ARTmania Festival, supporting this modern cultural project by granting festival goers free access to spaces that promote Romanian traditions.

Thus, during the ARTmania festival (26th – 28th of July 2024), festival participants have free access to the premises of the Museum of Traditional Popular Civilization “ASTRA” (16 – 20 Pădurea Dumbrava street) and to the House of Arts (21 Small Square – “Casa Artelor”), based on the festival wristband received for the ARTmania Festival 2024 edition.

Festival goers will also be able to attend, free of charge, during the festival days, the events listed below, organized by ASTRA Museum inside the House of Arts and the ASTRA Museum Complex:

ASTRA Museum – House of Arts

Location: Small Square no. 21

Schedule: Wednesday – Sunday, between 10:00 – 18:00

The exhibition “Making Transylvania. People and crafts.”

Anchored in the transitional period of the second half of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th century, the exhibition invites festival-goers to discover the importance of crafts within communities, the often unseen work of ordinary people, and explore the stories of creativity and resilience that each object transmits them.

Transylvania is a land that has survived for centuries on the basis of its own resources. The shift from medieval guilds to modern, more accessible and progressive associations set the stage for a technological evolution that reshaped production practices and improved the quality of life in and around cities. Beyond the form of artistic expression, crafts continued to significantly influence the cultural landscape of Sibiu and Transylvania, as a European region. The objects selected from the museum’s collections, some exhibited for the first time, do not shine either in spectacularity or in unseen beauty. But they illustrate the dedication and ingenuity of the common people. Those who, through their crafts and traditions, with effort, skill and care, took care of their households and families and shaped the towns and villages of Transylvania, contributing significantly to the local identity. Today, they all bear their mark.

Activities and workshops for children

ASTRA Museum – The open-air museum in Dumbrava Sibiului

Summer museum education program: The school in the traditional village

Location: The open-air museum, Etno Tehno Park, Ticera School

Schedule: 10:00 – 18:00

Workshops for making traditional masks and Workshops for making leather bookmarks:

The young participants will have the opportunity to learn how to reuse patches of all kinds and turn them into masks that “drive away evil spirits”. The interactive and energetic workshop will take place under the guidance of Ana Negoiță.

Musical show “Jazz for Kids” by the State Philharmonic

Schedule: Saturday, 27th of July, between 11:00 – 12:00

Location: Open-air museum, Etno Techno Park amphitheatre

Duration: 45 – 60 minutes

Activities and workshops for youth and adults

Exhibition: Heights. Inspiration Aspiration

Location: Multicultural Museum Pavilion, main entrance

Schedule: Wednesday – Sunday, 10:00 – 18:00

It presents visitors 122 traditional shirts sewn between 2018 and 2024, based on the plates from the albums made by Elisa Brătianu (1943) and Elena C. Cornescu (1906).

They are part of the great European family of pleated neck shirts, opulent, full of silk and lustre, reflecting East and West alike. They gather in them hundreds and thousands of local and distant stories, preserve the dialogue between old and new cultures. They are part of the universal patrimony and it is hard to believe that anyone who gets to know our high-waisted shirts can remain indifferent. They will remain a source of inspiration, and that’s great, because the world needs beauty.

Event: ASTRA Multicultural, 9th edition, July 26 – 28, 2024

Location: The open-air museum, various areas of the Country Fair
Schedule: 10:00 – 20:00

Participants will have access to a traditional multi-ethnic music and dance festival, a fair of traditional products and interactive and representative workshops with authentic craftsmen, a multi-ethnic gastronomic marathon, in which the adaptability of food to every season and situation in the life of the community is presented – a model to be adapted in the present for reducing food waste and for learning how to reuse objects for other purposes. More than 200 popular artists and craftsmen from Romania, representatives of the Hungarian, Saxon, Lipovan, Ukrainian, Tsiptsi and Roma communities will participate and animate various locations in the open-air museum in Dumbrava Sibiului.

Thematic routes – We discover cultural diversity

Location: The open-air museum, the Path of Ethnic Minorities

The ASTRA Museum invites ARTmania Festival participants to discover what cultural diversity means. For those who want to understand how people of different ethnicities, cultures or religions lived together in the villages of Romania, this activity is the perfect option.

Small, seemingly mundane things give visitors the opportunity to walk around and discover new aspects of the museum life. Participants are offered ten thematic routes to discover cultural diversity through play with the help of flowers, hats, fir trees, wheat, fairs, fences, stones, sticks, wheels or through times.

Those interested in these trails are asked to ask at the main museum entrance for one of the ten themed brochures or the treasure hunt leaflet, available free of charge in English, German and Hungarian.

ASTRA Museum Complex in Sibiu:

Address: 16-20 Pădurea Dumbrava street (Dumbrava Forest street), Sibiu

Schedule: Monday – Sunday, 10:00 – 20:00

# # #

About the Brukenthal National Museum

Brukenthal Museum is the oldest museum in Romania, hosting under its umbrella a series of cultural institutions like: the European Art Gallery, the Romanian Art Gallery, the Museum of History – Altemberger House, the Museum of Contemporary Art, the Museum of Natural History, the Museum of Pharmacy and the “August von Spiess” Hunting Museum. In addition to the varied cultural offer it proposes to its visitors, the Brukenthal Museum also hosts a series of masterpieces, like: ” Portrait of a Man with a Blue Chaperon”, by Jan Van Eyck, “Peasant with the Pitchfork” by Nicolae Grigorescu, “The Holy Family” by Jacob Jordaens or “Ecce Homo” by Titian.

About the ASTRA National Museum Complex

The ASTRA Museum is not an ordinary museum, it is a living world, a rare essence, a dynamic and unique experience of going back in time to the origins of the Romanian village. A simple walk through the 96 hectares of the open-air Museum in Dumbrava Sibiului recomposes the image of rural life throughout our country, of a colossal diversity, in over 400 peasant households, workshops, small wooden churches, trots, stables, wineries, water and windmills. Moreover, the image is completed and enlivened throughout the year by craft workshops, cultural animations, fairs and festivals of traditional music and dances through which the popular creation preserves its authenticity, while at the same time receiving current meanings in perfect harmony with the rhythm of our contemporary lives.

About ARTmania Festival:

ARTmania Festival, the first Romanian festival that has brought on the local market the concept of ​​combining the art with entertainment, is a platform dedicated to promoting all forms of artistic expression inspired by rock culture.

With each edition, ARTmania has consolidated itself as a major regional promoter of contemporary music. However, ARTmania Festival does not simply refer to shows of famous international and local bands. Music is the main component from which everything emerged, but it is only a part of the experience the festival was designed to offer to Romanian and foreign art lovers.

Since the very beginning, ARTmania has been designed as a cultural platform meant to offer the public various events and ways to experience different forms of artistic expression, such as concerts, exhibitions, book launches or film screenings. This common meeting place of artists with the public at the level of sound, colours, images or letters, hosted by the Square and the medieval fortress, creates the space of fairy tale and magic which is essentially comprised in the spirit of the festival.

Being the longest-lasting and largest rock festival in Romania and one of the longest-standing traditions of the regional cultural scene, ARTmania has shaped its own identity through a bold concept and a special ambience: the Large Square of one of the most beautiful fortresses medieval times in Eastern Europe.

ARTmania is constantly exploring new directions, building on the experience of previous editions, when a number of important artists and bands went on stage, international names like: Meshuggah, Porcupine Tree, Steven Wilson, Peter Hammill, Serj Tankian, Emperor, Devin Townsend, Dream Theater, Opeth, Wardruna, Die Toten Hosen, Nightwish, Within Temptation, Apocalyptica, HIM, The Gathering, The Sisters of Mercy, Anathema, Apocalyptica, Lacuna Coil, Helloween, Lacrimosa, Poets of the Fall or Deine Lakaien among many others.