Muscle Memory

Hunger Circuses, named for their appearance, were large buildings constructed in Communist Romania as centres intended to feed the population. By the time of Ceaușescu’s execution in 1989, only two had been completed, while many others remained unfinished, their skeletal frames looming over neighbourhoods as silent reminders of a broken promise. In the years that followed, the buildings were either repurposed or demolished. Muscle Memory presents a contemporary photograph of one of these buildings, the surviving Hunger Circus in Pantelimon, now a public market. The image is printed across thin slices of meat, chosen for their bodily associations and historical resonance. The number of slices corresponds to the monthly ration once allocated to a family of three under the regime, recalling the severe scarcity of food at the time. Here, the building’s monumental presence and the fragility of the medium combine, evoking both the weight of history and the corporeal memory of hunger.