Oana Dragulinescu: The museums of the future don’t just exhibit objects — they heal societies.

Oana Dragulinescu, founder of the Museum of Abandonment, talks about the power of memory, social courage, and how the museums of the future can heal societies.

Oana Dragulinescu is the Founder of the Museum of Abandonment – Romania’s first digital and participatory museum dedicated to the memory of institutionalized children. With a career of over 15 years in cultural communication and interdisciplinary projects, she chose to transform one of the most sensitive issues in Romanian society into a space for research, dialogue, and social reconstruction.

C&B: How would you describe yourself in one sentence that would make those who don’t know you yet curious?

Oana Dragulinescu: I am a communicator; I build vehicles that carry hard-to-speak messages to society. The Museum of Abandonment is one such vehicle.

C&B: If we were to trace a narrative thread of your career, what were the key moments that defined you?

Oana Dragulinescu: My career has been a succession of transitions through seemingly incompatible territories: from musicology and cultural television to communication and, ultimately, to social entrepreneurship through the Museum of Abandonment. If I were to mention just three defining moments, the first was when I realized that I could create cultural content that reaches broad audiences, not just elites – that’s when I produced the first classical music videos at TVR. The second was my collaboration with violinist Alexandru Tomescu and the creation of cultural products that changed the public perception of the accessibility of classical music. The third, and most radical, was the decision to leave behind the comfort of running a communication agency to found a museum about a collective trauma – in a country where such subjects bring not applause, but silence. That’s when the real challenge began.

C&B: What was the most difficult moment in the Museum of Abandonment’s journey, and how did you overcome it?

Oana Dragulinescu: The hardest moment was realizing that we weren’t just building a cultural project but a space of collective pain. Our team worked with harrowing testimonies, painfully heavy archives, and histories of abuse and institutionalized abandonment. Some colleagues quit because the emotional weight was too much. What keeps us going? The fact that the Museum of Abandonment is not a project about the past but one about the responsibility of the present — about what Romania looks like today, and more importantly, tomorrow.

C&B: Is there a dream or ambition that has guided you consistently?

Oana Dragulinescu: Yes. I strongly believe that a society that remembers is a society that heals. I wanted to create a place where memory is not just commemoration but an active tool of transformation. My dream is not to build a museum but to build a precedent — a model through which a society can work with its wounds without shame or denial.

C&B: How did you look at the beginning of your journey, and how do you feel you’ve transformed over time?

Oana Dragulinescu: At the beginning, it was about creativity and ideas. Today, it’s about resilience and building, no matter what happens around me. In the past, I was focused on bringing the public closer to culture. Today, I’m focused on creating spaces that change mindsets. My transformation has been from creativity to responsibility — toward the society I live in.

C&B: If we met your team, what do you think they would say about you?

Oana Dragulinescu: I think they’d say I’m a demanding person — especially with myself — but also someone who doesn’t abandon projects, people, or dreams. They would surely say that I put pressure on deliverable quality but protect when it comes to people. The intensity comes from the fact that I feel the Museum’s mission is greater than our personal comfort, and that creates a standard: we don’t work for a cultural product; we work for a shift in social vision. On the other hand, we are human, and there’s only so much pain we can bear.

C&B: What’s the most important decision you’ve made that changed your trajectory?

Oana Dragulinescu: The decision to almost completely close my communication agency — a stable, successful business — to pour all my energy into the Museum of Abandonment. It was a radical act. I traded security for the unknown. That decision moved me from the category of communicator of ideas to that of builder of social infrastructures.

C&B: How did the public react to the museum’s story, and what role did the community and partnerships play?

Oana Dragulinescu: The public reacted with something rare: gratitude. Not applause, but heartfelt messages from people who spent their childhoods in institutions and said, “For the first time, I feel seen and spoken about.” Our community formed organically — former institutionalized children, system professionals, historians, psychologists, artists. Each brought a piece of truth to this story. Partnerships have been vital — not just financially, but as validation. The Museum of Abandonment cannot survive on individual donors alone; it needs the involvement of companies and institutions that understand that social healing is also an economic responsibility. Unfortunately, we are far from financial stability. These have been hard years — 2025 being the hardest so far — and the pressure has been enormous. I’ve often asked myself how much is too much.

C&B: What differentiates your approach from the rest of the industry?

Oana Dragulinescu: The fact that we’re not building a museum of objects but a museum of consciousness. We don’t exhibit the past — we confront it. We use technology not for spectacle but as an empathy accelerator. While many cultural institutions chase audience numbers, we measure emotional impact. We are a digital and participatory museum — the first of its kind in Romania — dedicated to a part of history that is rarely discussed. That places us at the intersection of culture, mental health, and social justice. It’s a territory without competition because there is no precedent.

C&B: What does an ordinary day look like for you, and what brings you the most satisfaction?

Oana Dragulinescu: I don’t have “ordinary” days. I work in a continuous flow — between writing projects, researching archives, meeting institutions, working with the team, and managing various projects that sustain me financially, since the museum is not yet self-sustaining. My greatest satisfaction comes when people leave our exhibitions different from how they entered, or when I learn that our museum inspires film or theatre projects, or is being studied at universities. Or when a child asks, “Why don’t we learn about this in school?” That’s when we know our work doesn’t just build memory — it builds the future.

C&B: What values guide you, and how do you apply them daily?

Oana Dragulinescu: Three principles: responsibility, clarity, and kindness. Responsibility — because we work with trauma and don’t want to exploit it, but to expose it with dignity. Clarity — because memory without rigor becomes opinion. Kindness — because without it, truth becomes violence. In every decision, from an email to a strategy, we try to maintain this balance: not to abandon the truth, but not to wound in its name.

C&B: How did the idea of the Museum of Abandonment come to life, and what was the trigger?

Oana Dragulinescu: It started from indignation, like a painful knot in my throat — the fact that Romania had hundreds of thousands of institutionalized children and never created an official space of acknowledgment. It was a collective trauma covered in silence. But also because I still hear daily news about child abuse, in a society that has become too tolerant of their suffering.

C&B: How do you envision the Museum of Abandonment evolving in the coming years?

Oana Dragulinescu: I see it becoming a center for research and social education, not just a digital platform. We want to develop publicly accessible archives, create traveling exhibitions in small towns, and design programs for schools and professionals. In the coming years, we’ll seek partners who understand that this museum is a public memory service — a social infrastructure as necessary as a hospital or a library. The Museum of Abandonment is not an end — it’s a beginning.

The fact that the Museum of Abandonment has reached the top 5 digital museum projects worldwide confirms something essential: that an initiative born in Romania can have global relevance. That is my definition of success — to create something that changes perception, not just discourse.

The story of Oana Dragulinescu and the Museum of Abandonment is living proof that memory can become an active force for healing.