UNFINISHED: an immersive experience/ Three-day multidisciplinary festival (Partnership)

If you haven’t personally experienced UNFINISHED, you cannot explain what it is. No matter how much you read or hear others talk about it, no matter how much you dissect the website and the social media pages, in the end, you cannot fully understand what UNFINISHED is unless you participate. And it’s not enough to just be there as a bystander. The complete experience can only be had if, for three days, you let go of any masks and any form of control and allow yourself to be vulnerable, to listen, and to learn from people who are completely different from you. Three days in which you let yourself be carried away and in which you must leave behind everything you knew about yourself, whether you are a CEO, journalist, entrepreneur, philosopher, artist, musician, doctor, or maybe you are still searching.

And this is not just a catchy phrase meant to arouse curiosity, these are the actual words of those who have attended the festival.

UNFINISHED has been happening annually for eight years and is an event in continuous evolution and change. Taking the form of a multidisciplinary festival, yet extravagant and selective enough that the term „festival” is insufficient, it offers an immersive experience revolving around a theme. This year, the theme chosen is „SILENCE,” and Capucine Gros, the artistic director of the festival, says about it that „it’s a call to silence, but more importantly, to listening. We believe that silence is so closely tied to almost all aspects of life – from democracy, censorship, and power, to nature, respect, and taboo subjects – that SILENCE is a truly valuable perspective from which we could not only learn about what connects us all, but also help us find ways to listen better to one another.” UNFINISHED takes place from September 22nd to 24th in Bucharest, at the House of Ideas (Casa Universitarilor).

But what actually happens at UNFINISHED?

In an urban garden of 4000 square meters, a historic greenhouse, and a 151-year-old heritage house, UNFINISHED pushes the boundaries of traditional festivals, creating a multisensory playground where experiences take on various forms. In the HOUSE of IDEAS (46 Dionisie Lupu Street), the community can explore unique EXPERIENCES – workshops, social experiments – interactive CONVERSATIONS, ARTISTIC MOMENTS – concerts, DJ sets, dance, immersive INSTALLATIONS created by local and international artists, moments of WELLNESS – yoga, mindfulness, fitness – and the much-awaited TASTE sessions, which are the celebrated gatherings around the table, wine tastings and conversations by the fire.

Who comes to the festival?

Year after year, UNFINISHED manages to attract global innovators from diverse disciplines, passionate artists, and top entrepreneurs who bring their expertise and understanding to explore the annual theme of the festival. This year, dozens of guests from all corners of the world will transform Bucharest into a lab of ideas and experiments centered around SILENCE. Some guests will directly address silence, like journalist Anelise Borges (FR), who will talk about words that fail in the face of harsh reality, and photographer/historian João Paulo Barbosa (BR), who photographs silent landscapes. Some will metaphorically experience silence, like Lakshmi Rengarajan (US), who reimagines how we go on „dates” later in life, and Ligia Giatti (BR), who discusses work and leadership. Others will bring creative strategies to break the silence between us, like Topaz Adizes (MX) and the „spoken poetry” duo Griot (US), who will co-host {The And}, generating conversations among participants. One of the yoga instructors, Avisek Majumbar (IN), will lead long sessions specially designed to reach inner silence. Musicians and DJs will perform in silence, of course (as they always do!), and choreographer Rafaela Sahyoun (BR) will come to Bucharest for ten intense days before the festival, preparing six dancers (who have applied from Romania and all over Europe) to express themselves through their bodies rather than words. And these are just a few examples.

How can you be part of it? Pay with your time

In a world driven by monetary transactions, in UNFINISHED, time becomes the currency of access. Instead of purchasing tickets, those who wish to join the UNFINISHED community must go through a selection process, spending time to answer some questions: what brings them to the festival, what are their values, motivations, and stories, which domain interests them, and much more. There are only 3141 spots at UNFINISHED, and the selection is exclusively from those who have applied to participate at apply.unfinished.ro.