Lara Thoms

Email - laramarusyathoms (@) gmail.com

I am interested in socially engaged, site-specific and participatory possibilities in contemporary art and performance.

Many of my projects work with people beyond the arts. I have made work with a 70 year old popstar, Indonesian Metallica fans, an 87yr old television broadcaster, Western Australian women's clubs, children in detention on Nauru and 150 people who visited public libraries and invited me back to their homes.

Elements of exchange, politics, humour and dialogue are important in my work. Some of my projects are performative across forms of installation and video such a large scale socially engaged artwork  in Hurstville shopping mall made with local teenagers as part of the Museum of Contemporary Arts c3west program. Others work in traditional theatre spaces, with the intention to disrupt audience expectations of such sites.

I also work as an artist in Field Theory and am a co-director of Aphids. For ten years I have also been a curator and producer for organistations including Dark Mofo, Supplefox, Next Wave and Performance Space.

All of my projects sit within the common theme of reconsidering social hierarchies and highlighting the unexpected and being responsive to these sites.

My work has been presented with Perth International Arts Festival, Artshouse, Gertrude Contemporary, The Malthouse, Next Wave festival, the MCA, Performance Space, Radial System v Berlin, as well as multiple venues and institutions.