About Luna Nera

Our brief is to choose sites of former social and or cultural significance which have been “forgotten” in current times, becoming invisible to contemporary culture. We seek to reintegrate these spaces through art, restoring them to public visibility, allowing the transference of memory and forcing a recognition of the landscape. Our projects feed public curiosity about these forgotten spaces, and at the same time, expose art to people in ways that are completely different to the accepted demarcation for art-consumption.

Luna Nera Working Methods

As a group based in site-responsive practice, our modus operandi involves three steps:

1. Research phase. At this point we gather together any raw material we can find – readings, historical or other data, photo/film materials, site visits if possible.
2. Development phase. As a group we develop a concept based on the research. We assess what kind of materials we want to use, what kind of media to employ (e.g. video, slide projections), if we will have a live component to the work etc. At this point we will make some experiments with materials. If a site visit is possible we may come and film or photograph onsite.
3. Creation phase. This is where we put our ideas and experiments into practice. However since we want the work to be an active living response to the site, we keep ourselves open and flexible during this period, allowing aspects of the site, people in the locality etc. to influence us. We don’t simply turn up and “put” art work into the site. The process is one of evolution, not imposition. The concept turns into material reality in a dialogue with the site and its rich layering of meaning.

Notes.

The art work we make, together with any live performance, is directly related to the particular site and event we are invited to create. We seek to integrate our work not to impose it, the work must be a dialogue between the artist and the audience.

Luna Nera operate as a collective. Not all of the Luna Nera artists work together on all projects. Who will be involved in a particular project tends to depend on the nature and scale of the project, and where it is located.

Luna Nera sometimes invites other artists to collaborate with us once we have passed the development phase of the project. We invite them to respond to our concept and to the space.

BACK