Mădălina Surducan: Young people are increasingly engaged in the world they live in – and in politics

Although she says she ended up in the bookstore “by chance,” Mădălina Surducan’s path is a clear example that chance favors those brave enough to seek meaning in more than one direction at a time.

But her path here has been neither straight nor comfortable. After studying graphic arts at the University of Art, Mădălina continued her explorations in a theoretical direction: a master’s degree and then a PhD in the philosophy of contemporary art, at the Faculty of History and Philosophy. This dual background — both visual and abstract, rooted in books and in concepts — makes her a distinctive presence in Cluj’s cultural scene.

“Since high school, I dreamed of working in a bookstore. It was one of my dreams, alongside becoming an artist,” she says. Beyond her work at the bookstore, Mădălina is also involved in projects that bring contemporary art closer to the general public.

She collaborates with Art Crawl Cluj, an initiative that organizes guided tours through contemporary art spaces in the city — encounters between the public and actors on the local art scene: artists, curators, gallery owners. For her, these tours are a form of cultural mediation, not just gallery “visits”: they are spaces where symbolic barriers are broken down and bridges are built between seemingly parallel worlds.

On young people, aesthetics, and the language of the new generation

Mădălina’s perspective on younger generations is free of condescension and full of active curiosity. Today’s young people are anchored, she says. They are more rooted in the world they live in, with a political awareness clearly more pronounced than in previous generations. They have access to sophisticated concepts and interpretive frameworks, drawn from contemporary philosophy, critical theory, and the universe of social media. Of course, there is always the risk of oversimplification — but the gain is real: a vocabulary that allows them to speak about reality in their own terms.

And above all, they are creative. “I find it fascinating how the language of the younger generation has become an aesthetic one,” says Mădălina. She refers to a concern not only with what is said, but with how things look, how they are visually structured. The “core” phenomenon — with offshoots like cottagecore, goblincore, weirdcore — becomes for her a sign of a world where aesthetics has turned into a form of identity-based language.

In an age of fragmentation, what Mădălina Surducan does is an act of reunification: between text and context, between art and philosophy, between closed spaces and the wider public. Through her work, her reading, and her constant presence in cultural projects, she opens doors. And behind those doors, dialogue can happen — perhaps the rarest and most precious form of exchange in today’s society.