Delia left an entire body of work from over a 16-year period when she left former Yugoslavia for Singapore in January 1992. Some of the clay sculptures she left were still in need of a final firing before completion.

In 2022, she revisited the trove of early works that were in storage at her family’s home to complete the unfinished pieces and recompose them into an expansive installation. Delia envisioned an “imaginary memorial” to encapsulate all the events, developments, and time that had passed since her migration to Singapore in the 90s.

Initially conceived as ‘archaeology of visual imagery’, Delia created the installation as a palimpsest of memories, experiences, and history. From her earliest memory of growing up in Romania to her experience of living through the tumultuous political events that led to the collapse of the communist bloc in 1989 and the civil war that fractured former Yugoslavia.

Delia drew visual inspiration for her sculptures from the natural landscapes and urban environment in her native land of Transylvania and eastern Serbia, in Vojvodina. And conceived the installation as a metaphor for perpetual change and transformation.

The exhibition title refers to a river that has long since vanished, which Delia learned while she worked on the exhibition and discovered that it has been converted into a water-draining canal. The Galacta river was a vital feature of the landscape that sustained life and agriculture along the banks of Kikinda, the city that hosted the International Sculpture Symposium - Terra.

Photography by Igor Grandic