The University House turns into the House of Ideas. UB, partner in organizing the 2024 edition of the festival UNFINISHED

The University House of UB will host, between September 27^th – 29^th 2024, the 9^th edition of the festival UNFINISHED, turning into the House of Ideas. Experiences, conversations, art installations, performances, well-being sessions and more await the 3.141 participants who will be accepted to spend the end of September together.

Ice baths with Tiberiu Ușeriu, bread tasting with Lara Schütz, mapping the University House Garden with Nicolas Triboi or healing sessions through sound and vibration with Awa Ly are just some of the surprising experiences which the participants to the 2024 edition of the festival will have the chance to experiment.

Thus, for three days, House of Ideas, the patrimony orchard house and the 4.000 sq m garden in the heart of Bucharest become the meeting place of the UNFINISHED community.  

The theme of this year’s edition is PRAXIS, and this year, more than ever, the festival UNFINISHED is all about connecting theory with practice, about how we can transform from passive receptors of information to active creators of our own way of learning, about how we can disconnect from familiarity and how we can embrace the present with all that it brings.

The UNFINISHED festival is developed under the high patronage of the European Parliament. More details about this year’s edition are available here.

House of Ideas becomes No-Phone Zone

And in order to truly practice this philosophy, this year the festival will introduce a No-Phone Zone – a space that encourages profound thinking and unfiltered experiences. Thus, House of Ideas will have no signal, encouraging participants to connect to each other and be present here and now.

How can you attend UNFINISHED?

Just as in previous years, participating to the festival costs time and reciprocity. The only way to have access to the UNFINISHED community is by filling in a form in which those interested must talk about themselves, about their values and motivation and about what they bring to the festival through their presence. Registrations have opened on www.unfinished.ro, and only 3.141 participants will be accepted to attend.

What’s happening at UNFINISHED 2024?

Urban Planning Walk with urbanist Lior Steinberg

What better way to discuss urban changes than by taking a walk through town? Urbanist Lior Steinberg will coordinate a workshop in motion through Bucharest, to interpret the impact of the city on human interaction and will approach subjects such as infrastructure, planning mistakes, transformation opportunities, strong points and biases translated in the constructed space. Lior Steinberg is a Dutch urbanist, co-founder of Humankind, a multi-disciplinary agency for urban change. Lior helps cities to look at the urban space beyond functionality and to plan infrastructure which has the ability to make people smile. In 2022, Lior published The Car That Wanted to be a Bike, a children’s book on the joy of pedalling and the future of cities.

Bread Tasting with Lara Schütz

What’s your first memory related to bread? What smell does love have? What aromas fill your mind when you think about the bread your ate in your childhood? These are just some of the questions that will guide the workshop which Lara Schütz prepares for UNFINISHED 24. Born in Romania and established in Austria, Lara fell in love early in her childhood with the divine smell of freshly baked bread, thanks to her grandma. Her goal at UNFINISHED will be to explore,  together with the participants, the way in which we bake bread, to familiarize them with the smell and aromas, and how they can become more aware of these.

Sound Healing with Awa Ly

Music has the power to bring people together, but also to heal them. Therapy through sound, or acoustic healing, was used for centuries as a healing instrument, using vocal vibrations and instruments to stimulate the nervous system. Besides the live concert, artist Awa Ly will guide at UNFINISHED two sessions of acoustic healing. A Senegal singer of French origin, Awa Ly launched her most recent album Safe and Sound to bring us together around common questions and emotions about the state of the world as a common space. Her music is not only for listening, but a show to be experimented, from voice to hand choreography and the complexity of her movement.

Morning Bootcamp with Tiberiu Ușeriu

Morning Bootcamp is an experience conceived to immerse the participants in Tibi’s daily routine, offering a unique opportunity to train, recover and nourish the body just as a top athlete. The experience will include running exercises, stretching, ice baths and a nourishing breakfast, created after Tibi’s personal routine, offering a chance to be a witness in the practice that modelled the career of one of the most resilient and accomplished endurance sportsmen in the world.

Live cartography with Nicolas Triboi

Resuming the works started by Nicolas Triboi in 2022, when UNFINISHED moved to the garden of the University House, this project marks a new step in the effort of the EIDOS foundation to restore and regenerate one of the most beautiful urban gardens after the initial 1860 plans of the Librecht-Filipescu House (as it was named initially).

In this practical experience, the participants will have the unique opportunity (and responsibility!) to explore and document each form of small life (from plants and trees to birds and insects) which contributed to sustaining an urban ecosystem.

Botanical dyes with Adelina Toma

Can anyone speak about colours better than nature itself? And what does it mean to wear nature on our own bodies? How do fibres and dye affect our skin and the world around us? The slow fashion designer Adelina Toma, founder of Ițe Urbane, an ethic slow-fashion workshop in Bucharest, will guide the participants into the traditional fabric painting art using plants. Adelina will also create a permanent installation in the UNFINISHED Orchard House – space where the community gathers around the table and shares breakfast, lunch and dinner together.