Cristina Gârleşteanu
Romania
Biography
Cristina Gârleșteanu is a photographer and marketing professional. With a background in social sciences – she attended the Faculty of International Relations and European Studies at UBB Cluj-Napoca – photography was a means to bring her closer to this field. A former Editor-in-Chief of the online magazine FOTO4all, Gârleșteanu is also a co-founder of Bucharest Photo Week. Her images have been published in a range of magazines, whilst her work has featured in various group and solo exhibitions, most recently in the USA and Mexico. Gârleșteanu is a member of Women Street Photographers. Her photo book, “The Flight Odyssey”, was published in 2022.
In 2021 and 2023, she also published the two volumes “Beyond Creativity and Photography” and she is part of Futures Photography starting 2023.
She began working as well with collage and mixed media recently, after experimenting with illustration and other forms of artistic expression. She enjoys collage because it is a form of creative expression that allows for the reinterpretation and recontextualization of old elements, bringing forgotten stories to life or offering new perspectives on familiar images.
Project
Looking at Loneliness – The idea of solitude and isolation is central to urban culture. Yet it is hard to believe that anyone could feel lonely in a city surrounded by millions of people. Urban loneliness, however, is real. Solitude is a subjective state and does not necessarily have to do with being alone. It can be deeply rooted in a person’s fabric, or it can be transient: a response to various external circumstances that, sooner or later, dissipate. One can feel lonely in the middle of a crowd if there is a sense of disconnection. It is not enough to live close to others. We need to draw near and connect to form meaningful relationships or to feel that we belong somewhere.
Cities can be overwhelming spaces, full of anonymous strangers. Cities can be lonely places. With their layers of people, buildings, wires, cars, stairs, signs and lines, networks and flows of traffic. With their antisocial courtesy: avoiding conversations, greetings, or smiles so as not to invade others’ space. With the anonymity and freedom they offer; a freedom we all sometimes desire, yet one that comes at a cost.
Loneliness can be difficult to confess, and equally difficult to categorise. This project seeks to address the complexity of urban solitude, whatever form it takes. Through fragments or representations of urban loneliness—photographed across the world—the viewer is invited to confront this feeling of solitude and to question visual memory as a means of raising awareness.
Statement
Cristina Gârleșteanu’s work revolves around authenticity, social introspection, and the silent tension between inner and outer worlds. Her photographic practice is rooted in honesty and “conscious intuition”: a commitment to reveal things unfiltered, acknowledging the emotional, chaotic, and unpolished.
She has expressed the belief that art sometimes needs to disturb, unveil truths, and challenge both the audience and the creator. Much of her recent work explores the condition of urban solitude—not only as loneliness, but also as a relational and political dimension of city life.
Through fragments and subtle visual traces, she invites the viewer to reflect on disconnection, anonymity, and the meaning of belonging. In her hands, photography becomes a conduit between emotion and thought, between self and city: an effort to listen, to see, and to be seen.
