2014–2017

A Diagram of Utopia

"A Diagram of Utopia" explores the relationship between personal memory, urban space, and the experience of growing up. The places and people photographed in the project evoke fragments of the artist’s childhood period, becoming a means of questioning his own identity and sense of belonging within the urban environment in which he grew up. Around 2011, after spending 27 years living in the same urban environment, Ghercă began questioning his relationship with the spaces that had surrounded him throughout his life. He became interested in the familiar yet strangely alienating details of everyday life, and in how the architecture of his childhood had shaped his perception of intimacy, community, and personal space. Growing up surrounded by apartment buildings, Ghercă experienced a form of collective living in which physical proximity did not necessarily translate into meaningful social connections. The apartment block, conceived as a shared residential structure, imposed a particular form of community while simultaneously limiting individual privacy. Thin walls separating apartments blurred the boundaries between private and collective life, making even ordinary conversations potentially audible to neighbors. Over time, the artist developed the habit of speaking quietly to avoid being overheard, an unconscious adaptation to his surroundings that gradually evolved into a broader need for isolation. Through "A Diagram of Utopia", Ghercă examines how architecture and urban planning influence individual behavior, personal identity, and the relationship between intimacy and collective existence. The project reflects on the psychological consequences of inhabiting spaces originally conceived around an ideological vision of communal living, questioning the distance between the utopian ambitions embedded in their design and the realities of everyday life. 12 color pictures, 4x5" large format negative