Shopping City Ploiești, part of the NEPI Rockcastle portfolio, continues for the fourth consecutive year its partnership with ARTOWN NOW, the only urban art annual in Romania, which reaches its fifth edition this year. Under the theme “The Grammar of Freedom,” this year’s edition invites the public to explore new forms of expression and creation, and Shopping City Ploiești supports this initiative and facilitates direct interaction between the community and artists through the campaign “Rewrite your story NOW.” Between August 6 and 22, the public is invited to reuse books they no longer need and to contribute to their transformation into new objects and artistic interventions.
Thus, Shopping City Ploiești creates a context in which visitors are not just spectators, but become part of the artistic process, transforming the books they no longer use into starting points for new forms of expression. The initiative reflects the role the shopping center assumes to create spaces where the community not only consumes, but also participates, discovers, and interacts with art, transforming shopping centers into platforms where the public encounters the creative expression of artists who bring to life the spaces in which we live. In this way, reuse, creativity, and art come together in a space accessible to the general public, contributing to a more dynamic urban experience that is more connected to the community.
The campaign takes place in several stages, between August and September 2026, and debuts at Shopping City Ploiești:
August 6–22 – ARTOWN NOW Alternative Library, set up next to the BookCity bookstore in Shopping City Ploiești. Visitors are invited to bring volumes they no longer need and can, in turn, choose a book to take home. The specially arranged area will also function as a reading space.
August 29–30- papier-mâché workshop, organized during the ARTOWN NOW weekend at Republica de sub Castani. Some of the collected books will be transformed into decorative objects and furniture through the papier-mâché technique, which brings paper back to its raw material state and allows the reuse of pages in new forms. Books in good condition will be donated to school libraries in Prahova county.
September 19 – Book-Object workshop, organized during the opening weekend of ARTOWN NOW. Participants are invited to bring a favorite book and transform it into a book-object, with a coffee table book-style artwork cover.
The partnership between Shopping City Ploiești and ARTOWN NOW, now in its fourth edition this year, is part of NEPI Rockcastle’s social responsibility direction, through which the group supports local communities and initiatives focused on culture and education. Through the “Rewrite your story” campaign, this direction takes shape in a project that supports local creativity, encourages public participation, and contributes to the transformation of commercial spaces into meeting places for community, culture, and artistic expression.
Those interested can bring books to the BookCity bookstore in Shopping City Ploiești between August 6 and 22, with the fifth edition of ARTOWN NOW continuing in Ploiești between September 18 and October 4, 2026, under the theme “The Grammar of Freedom.”
More information about events at Shopping City Ploiești can be found on the shopping center’s official website and on its Facebook and Instagram pages.
