From a work or festive shirt worn by village women, ia has become a national symbol as well as a cultural artifact now found in museums galleries and even copied by international fashion houses. The essential question is when and how does this transition occur? Is ia an artwork in itself or a vehicle for other artistic discourses? In Romanian culture ia is one of the immovable heritage elements that, as Mircea Malița also said "(...) takes us out of the realm of art and brings us into that of history". To trace its path through history means to follow in one way or another the very historical evolution of the regions where ia represents the central part of the Romanian folk costume.

Today, ia often crosses the threshold of art and culture institutions moving from a utilitarian domain into an exhibition space. This happens because ia’s carry in their weave not only history but also unique symbolic elements and through their sewing techniques and age they can even be considered rare qualities that unquestionably qualify them as heritage objects.

From Fabric to Statement

The shift from ethnographic item to artistic object involves a process of reinterpretation. Contemporary artists relate to ia not as a museum piece but as an aesthetic symbolic or political code they can rewrite. This was also the focus of The Living Thread project, launched in May 2024, as part of the Romanian Creative Week where Romanian communities from the country and the diaspora were invited to collectively contribute to the "sowing" of an ia. The initiative involved the creation of a truly collective ia, a traditional clothing item that dozens of participants from Romania and abroad were invited to sew each adding a motif, a thread, a color or a message. This symbolic “sowing” of ia transformed embroidery into an act of memory and belonging as well as a reclamation of a fluid cultural identity suspended between roots and displacement. Ia is no longer a showcase object but a surface of collective writing where the artisanal gesture becomes a contemporary artistic expression. Through this practice the project redefines ia as a space of reunion between generations, communities and perspectives. Tradition becomes a collaborative platform, and the aesthetics of embroidery acquire social, political and emotional dimensions.

Another example is Zoe Vida Porumb, who has been active since the 1970s in the field of textile arts and is known for the way she integrates traditional Maramureș embroidery into contemporary art. In her diverse works from tapestries to installations and textile volumes the decorative elements of ia are transformed into abstract yet recognizable compositions where the thread becomes line and the ornament a conceptual structure. For the artist, embroidery is a form of cultural writing, a visual alphabet through which she recovers tradition and brings it into dialogue with contemporary aesthetics. Thus the ornamental motif specific to ia is freed from its utilitarian function and becomes a bearer of multiple meanings, personal, feminine, and communal.

Exhibit, Symbol, or Fetish? The Risks of Aestheticization

Once introduced into the gallery space or the exhibition circuit ia risks being detached from its original context where it spoke of labor celebration or emotional belonging to a community. Its transformation into an aesthetic object displayed on a wall or endlessly reproduced image involves a real tension between symbolic value and visual consumption. In the absence of critical or emotional contextualization ia can become a mere decorative identity sign, a "cool object" of collective memory but stripped of its initial complexity and intimacy. When aesthetics becomes the goal in itself and the object is reproduced without reflection, fetishization occurs, a process by which the cultural symbol is extracted from history and turned into merchandise. The risk of aestheticization becomes evident when ia is reduced to decorative background for example in advertising campaigns posters or shop windows that use ia motifs only to generate visual impact or instant "authenticity". In these cases, ia communicates nothing about belonging, tradition, manual labor, or the body that once wore it, and becomes pure image.

In contrast artists who approach the ia with responsibility and depth manage to recover its multiple voices. One example is Andreea Tănăsescu founder of the brand and community La Blouse Roumaine which promotes and brings together creators of ias from Romania and the diaspora. She played a key role in popularizing the ia and her initiative contributed to the establishment of the Universal Day of the Ia celebrated annually on June 24. She also facilitates workshops through which authentic ia models are sewn by artisans and worn in urban contexts blending tradition with contemporary design the brand’s name being directly linked to the work of Henri Matisse. Traditional embroidery is thus integrated into works that function as forms of emotional and bodily archiving. In this way the embroidered thread is not just ornament but an extension of personal and feminine memory akin to a gesture of recovery but also of rewriting the past. Thus the ia becomes language not decor.

At the opposite end, the symbol becomes a fetish when it is emptied of function mechanically, replicated and turned into a souvenir. The market for "traditional" items sold in airports tourist fairs or souvenir shops offers numerous examples of industrially produced ias with no real connection to the cultural space that generated them. These products reproduce only the appearance, not the experience, they are merely visual consumables, not fragments of identity.

The real issue is not whether ia "deserves" to enter the gallery, but how. How we choose to look at it, what story we tell about it, what context we provide and what questions we leave open. Only in this way can empty aestheticization be avoided and an authentic connection between object history and viewer be preserved.

Ia as Pictorial Element

In the art of Cela Neamțu, ia is no longer just a piece of traditional clothing or an identity symbol, it becomes a plastic theme, a pictorial motif, and a space of expression. In her recent works from 2023 the artist proposes a series of compositions in which Romanian ias from Bistrița-Năsăud and Huedin are represented with meticulous attention to embroidery color palette and decorative rhythms. What becomes visible in these images is a subtle transition from the original function of clothing to the status of a "cultural icon" elevated to the rank of pictorial symbol.

In Bistrița-Năsăud on blue background and Bistrița-Năsăud on red background the composition emphasizes the ornamental texture of ia, its geometric construction and chromatic variety evoking not just a clothing item, but an entire visual memory of the place. The uniform background (blue respectively red) highlights the sculptural form of the shirt, and the absence of the human figure shifts the focus from body to symbol. Ia thus becomes a bearer of autonomous meaning, a "character" with its own identity within the painting.

In Huedin – Fragments of Beauty from the Shirt of Eternity, Cela Neamțu uses a more fluid almost poetic representation of ia where the sleeve volutes embroidery details and decorative inserts create a sense of motion within the composition. The title itself suggests a vision of ia as an emotional and eternal feminine archive, the “shirt of eternity” not just as a metaphor but as a visual manifesto.

These works offer a subtle alternative to empty aestheticizations or commercial exploitations of ia. Without theatricalizing the object or isolating it in artificiality, Cela Neamțu transforms it into a dense visual field where ornament becomes language and tradition a form of painting in itself. The painted ia is no longer worn but contemplated. And yet through color and rhythm it continues to live.

The path of ia from functional object to cultural symbol and then to artistic theme reveals not only the complexity of this artifact, but also the responsibility we bear when we exhibit, reinterpret or reproduce it. Ia’s entry into the gallery should not merely signify a shift in aesthetic register but a recontextualization that maintains its connection to the community memory, and the original creative gesture. More than a simple object to behold, ia can become a platform for dialogue between past and present, between tradition and creation. It is not its symbolic value that should be questioned, but the way we choose to activate it as a decorative surface, or a space of meanings as visual pretext, or as cultural text.

Ph.D. Researcher Andrei FĂȘIE

Queen Mary of Romania dressed in ia, with child King Michael the First