3rd Space Sending Signal

3rd Space Studio is the communal printing workshop, which from 2018 to 2026 was located in the Casa Zemstvei Cultural Center (also known as Muzeul Zemstvei or just Zemstva), Chisinau, Republic of Moldova. This one-room space for various editorial practices related to samizdat (self–publishing), collaborative design and exercises with collective mode of cultural production. The space has functioned not only as physical infrastructure but also as a set of methods for mobile publishing, facilitating organizational processes, research, and educational programs based on creation of low-run printed matter. Over the years, this studio has become a key point and the basic material infrastructure for the work of such collectives as Kolxoz, Drujba, Iskra RISO-unit, and many other initiatives, contributing to the development of an independent culture of publishing and artistic cooperation in Chișinău.

book index of recent times:

1.“IF THIS A COLLECTIVE ACTION?”, October 2024, RISO-print, one sheet A3 folded

On one side of this samizdat consists of a poster collection combined into a common one. The other side complements the publication with texts from each of the authors. These texts are reflections by the participants on the process of collective production of this publication. The zine appeared during the workshop 3rd Space Ship led by Drujba cooperation and organized by Satelit Association (Iași, Romania) in the frame of Observator – a project which maps representations of the Universe in contemporary art. Important questions raised at the meeting were “who is observing?” and “from what position is the observation taking place?” To work with these issues and challenge linear notions, the group turned to collective reading of Walter Benjamin’s essay “Theses on the Philosophy of History.” Through this practice, the group became equipped for an excursion to the Yuri Gagarin Cosmonautics Museum – an amateur museum at the Young Technicians Station in Chișinău. Observations and visual materials that were obtained there, formed the basis of the posters and texts. 

2.“OPTIMIZATION”, October 2025, RISO-print, graph paper, linocut, stencil, one sheet A3 snake folding

The title of this collective publication repeats the official explanation that circulated around the process of liquidation of such institutions as the Agricultural University of Moldova — a landmark educational center, given the country’s economic specifics. The edition of thirty copies was printed on architectural graph paper, a reference both to the modernist planned organization of urban space and the city walk Relics of Urban Planning Compositions. This walk took place on the first day of the experimental small-scale publishing laboratory “From the hill to the valley,” which took place in the 3rd Space Studio within the framework of the 4rd edition of SCA (Alternative Cultural Spaces) program organized by the Oberliht Association. The field trip consisted of an artistic exploration of Petricani Hill, one of the microdistricts of Chișinău that was built during the socialist period, famous for its former Agricultural Institute. The purpose of the walk was to observe how, under the slogan of necessity, infrastructural and institutional degradation is taking place. This publication is part of the Flickering Modernism series. 

3. “ELECTRIFICATION”, November 2024, RISO-print, one sheet A3 poster/semi leporello folding 

 The famous Lenin’s slogan — "Communism is Soviet power plus the electrification of the whole country" — appears in this publication as specific material traces: infrastructural objects, monumental artworks, and contemporary representations of electrification facilities found in the public spaces of Dubossary. This city is renowned for the Moldavian SSR’s first major hydroelectric power plant and artificial water reservoir on the Dniester River — a site that, in the post-Soviet era, after war in 1992, became a “frozen conflict” zone between the main territory of Republic of Moldova and the unrecognized breakaway state PMR (Pridnestrovian Moldavian Republic). This publication as part of the Flickering Modernism series was created during the Taxi Cultural mobility program organized by Arta Azi as opportunities for artistic practices in Moldova's regions, thereby contributing to the decentralization of cultural production.

4. “HDBK: FLICKERING MODERNISM”, February 2026, linocut, letterpress, silkscreen, E65-envelope size

This visual handbook brings together selected works from the Flickering Modernism series. The traces of modernist legacies – public services, urban spaces, telecommunications, ideological and educational infrastructures – still persist in the landscape, even as their functions have dissolved. Flickering Modernism explored these shifting, vanishing, or repurposed structures and subjectivities, asking how modernity continues to shape social life, spatial experience, and collective imagination amid its erosion. Filled with encoded textual reports, with a range of letterpress and modular stamps on thin carbonless paper, this brochure finds its place in the flickering gap between the poetic and the protocol-based modes of cataloguing. Publication was produced in the frame of “Artist as an Independent Publisher” project organised by HfK Bremen.

5. “MIKRORAYON KHOLODETS”, January 2026, hectograph-print, A4 on selected paper 

Kholodets, also known as a aspic, is a traditional Eastern European meat jelly dish. Such gastronomic parallel serves as a reference for the printing method by which this samizdat was made. Hectography — gelatin-based manual printing process for which the printer was cooked literally in the kitchen of Slavs & Tatars collective (Berlin, Moabit) and ultimately consists of a gelatin pad on the plate — almost Kholodets. With the help of the participants of the "Kholodets Publishing House" workshop, which took place in Pickle Bar (Berlin, Moabit) the publication was transformed into a mikrorayon (neighborhood) on paper, consisting of Plattenbau, also known as Panelka — an embodiment of the largest socialist housing project. Built on an industrial, assembly-line scale, it fulfills basic human needs by offering a place for everyday life and celebrations of Christmas - New Year - Christmas again - and the Old New Year. Within these buildings, people have their own kitchens where they can cook kholodets with their families. 

6. “C Ă L U Ș A R * E L E H Î R T O P”, June 2025, RISO-print, stencil, cyanotype, typewriter, A5 zine

The publication, based on a photo-collage collection, was created as part of the YAL (Youth Action Lab), a summer school for young people from Moldova and Germany who feel committed to environmental and community action. Its cover recreates a pattern from the interior of the Casa de Cultura (House of Culture) in the village of Hîrtop, in southern Moldova, where one section of the programme took its part. In YAL program, led by ArtaAzi (Hîrtop) and Coopera (Berlin), the 3rd Space Studio team was responsible for organizing the process of collective publishing, facilitating joint printing workshops and providing exercises to translate group expression through one material object. Dérive around the countryside, personal thoughts, discussions, readings and other activities — all were melted into this zine. The team operated as a mobile publishing unit in the foyer of the Hîrtop’s Casa de Cultura, as well as focused on the postproduction, presentation, and distribution in Chișinău, at 3rd Space Studio — a place that has always strived to recreate, maintain, and preserve logic of the House of Culture, this institutional heritage and function in society.

7. “COOP OR DIE”, May 2026, RISO-print, mixed manual techniques, A4 magazine format

A publication created as part of the process for establishing the International social cooperative of visual artists NASA ZADRUGA (O.U.R. Coop). COOP OR DIE centres on a cooperatively constructed AZbook’a (glossary), while also documenting a week of meetings, conferences, shared discussions, and time spent together as a big temporary artistic collective. During the project, the 3rd Space team became part of polygraphic forces — a mobile publishing house that took place in the former cantina of the semi-active Institute of Black Metallurgy in Niksic, Montenegro. The team built its temporary “institution” reduced to a level of functional minimum, where participants, for the open template, contributed images, texts or words related to the cooperativism. All contributions were once sorted out, merged and organized by the publishing team in the form of social sculpture on paper, replicated on different occasional machines and spread around at the end of the conference.

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«Privet! Eto govorit 3rd Space 

here heaters make murmur

actually very cold day for 18 May 

but inside warm yellow light and clean floor 

it gives hope 

at least something was done 

after long winter hibernation

even for such small things you need to find a way

Where have all the tools disappeared?

How to take water from the toilet?

Why is this roof falling down?

it gives unhope. 

Secret garden behind the window

there is bugs from a pine tree rained on the Stalkers

and if extrapolate, Stalkers which appear every spring 

are like bugs (or tarakany) for the paznik's of Museum

but it all was at daytime and now it's dark outside 

calmly-strange be alone here in night

in this deserted building

like kosmonaut who's sending signal from Space»

The concept of the third space is related to the sociocultural term to designate communal space, as distinct from the home (first space) or job (second space).

3rd Space Studio was activated for work, communication and permanent exhibition. Symbiosis of kombinat, church, cosmo station and café.

The principles of multifunctionality and transformability as ecology of space use are professed here. It means experimenting with different functions and their various combinations in one environment. For example Exposition, Reading corner, Publishing house, Post office, Ugolok Electronika or Disc-jockey station.

Located in Chișinău, Muzeul Zemstvei or just Zemstva.

Zemstva is not so small and often not so functional semi-museum in Strada Sfânt A. Șciusev 103, Chișinău. In decaying condition. With roof leaks and no heating. And with ambivalent and sometimes hostile conditions and attitude towards artists and culture workers. Has some kind of manifesto of area: Best museum (or other public space) is closed museum.

Such place with liquid status and liquid potential.

It claims work for activation or degeneration.

If <<work>> is well done, it leads to the fact that here people and elements meet and communicate with each other.

Such activity returns this place to the functions for which it was built.

It has a secret garden, where Stalkers have a rests, probably

Work Memo

talk a bit, but work more

drink coffee but work fast

help each other

share good tricks and methods

work and than talk

improve by work

experiment and not be mean

don't be afraid of <<oshibka>> (en.mistake)

don't think about money as result

print & publish

clean studio after using it

clean toilet

Outcomes of studio work are positioned on hanging <<On Wall Archive>> (Archiv Na Niti).

This archive allows to display all publications and material at once and store it.

DEFINITION OF 3rd SPACE: a neutral ground visitors are not tied down to the area financially, politically, legally, or otherwise and are ‒ free to come and go as they please. A leveler (a leveling place) 3rd SPACE put no importance on an individual’s status in society. Someone’s economic or social status does not matter in 3rd SPACE, allowing for a sense of commonality among its occupants. There are no prerequisites or requirements that would prevent acceptance or participation in the 3rd SPACE. It harbors a number of regulars that help to give the space its tone, and help to set the mood and characteristics of the area. Regulars are also attract newcomers and are there to help someone new to the space feel welcome and accommodated. A low profile 3rd SPACE are characteristically wholesome. The inside of 3rd SPACE is without ‒ extravagance or grandiosity, and has a homely feel. 3rd SPACE are never snobby or pretentious and it accepting of all types of individuals, from several different paths of life.

Working with the concept of studio spaces as a temporary service or permanent model, KOLXOZ came up with theses that contribute to sustainability and effectiveness. Principals were born as a result of a research on the topic «Potentials of Limits» and were relevant for peripheral areas of Eurasia. These principles can be organically developed and adapted for other regions

• Multifunctionality and transformability as ecology of space use. Involves experimenting with expansion of the dogmatical functions of the place.
• Recycling of technologies, methodologies, ideologies. It means exploring outdated and forgotten tools, practices, ideas and reimagining their purpose for a new context or for needs relevant to current tasks of collective.
• Autonomy of self‒production. From research, creation and replication to distribution, theoretical formulation and presentation. Turning every step of this process into partisan fight for autonomy of perceptions. This prevents dependence on the mechanistic segregation tendencies of modern society and from addiction on automaticity of consumerism.
• Collectivity as a format of work, as a work of art, as a search for alternatives, as a pragmatical response to challenges that cannot be dealt by a single person.