barking dog, Bucharest (not realized)

For no other creature is territorial behavior so pronounced as it is for dogs. It is based on the instinct to take possession of a territory, to mark it and to defend it. Directly in front of the Palace of the Parliament in Bucharest the leashed or enclosed animal would be an appellative symbol of a lost terrain, of the seizure and appropriation of public space for dictatorial and propaganda purposes by the then president Nicolae Ceausescu. In the process of constructing the palace in 1984, which included extensive plazas and boulevards, around 40,000 homes and countless churches and synagogues were torn down, and evictions were carried out in parts of the old city in the 1970s. The site of the former “People’s House” would be temporarily occupied by the visibly “domesticated” dog, who thus symbolically reclaims the environment and living space of the citizens. (JO)