I live on the 9th floor. There’s only one elevator. So, every morning, while waiting for the lift, I held my 5-year-old son in my arms, gazing at the paintings on the walls of the building. Since it took quite a while for the elevator to reach us (an old one, you see), I started inventing stories based on the images at hand. One painting, in particular, caught our attention every day: a winter scene, with a sled, a house buried in snow, all seen from a distance. I immediately added wolves to the tale, circling the house, which turned our everyday stories into an inn. It was the same story every morning.
Over time, we began to leave earlier to delve deeper into the painting. A mother and a little girl appeared in the painting (in our story), and because the tension between the wolves and the mother and child was so intense, we started continuing the story at bedtime. But at bedtime, sleep came rather slowly, so new incidents had to be added. And they came. First and foremost, we adapted Cosette’s story from “Les Miserables”. Just as Aleksey Tolstoy adapted Pinocchio and created a new character, Buratino, with new, original adventures, Cosetter from our story distanced herself from Victor Hugo and took on a new form. Cosette had been one of the stories that moved me in childhood, alongside “Cuore, the Heart of a Child”. Especially the episode where Jean Valjean comes and saves her from the inn where she endures numerous humiliations. Thus, the entire inn from the painting became the perfect backdrop for Cosette´s fantastic adventures. A little mouse became her companion to ease her work and loneliness. The inn´s water is drawn from a well that the wolves constantly circle. Jean Valjean has a wife named Umbra. Night after night, a brick was added through imagination or by adapting real stories I had heard at different times in life.
Recently, the story received funding, and Cosette, as an animated short film, will soon appear on screens. – Radu Nicolae, animated film director & producer
The painting, a winter scene with a sleigh and a house buried in snow, became the space where characters and events came to life. Wolves, the mother, and the child were the protagonists of a daily epic, and the tension between them inspired stories that extended beyond the wait for the elevator, continuing into bedtime, introducing new incidents and characters. This painting becomes more than a mere visual representation; it is a gateway to parallel worlds and endless stories, capturing the creative and exploratory spirit of a family that transformed daily waiting into a unique imaginary journey. Inspired by this winter scene, the parent and their child discovered that in the quest for inspiration, any image can become an endless source of stories and imagination. – Mirona Radu, curator