Thea Lazăr lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. She graduated from the University of Art and Design in the same city and studied with a scholarship at the Academy of Art in Szczecin, Poland.
Her practice is mainly digital but meant to live offline, in installations that have come to include textiles and plants. Her plants are telling larger stories about the environment, the planet and socio-political situations through local or untold tales.
She’s looking for the space where the past and the future meet and the place where science and pseudoscience blur the lines to create a new narrative through combining mythological stories with outer space imagery.
Since 2016 she’s been a member of the Aici Acolo collective – an artist run project focused on promoting young and emerging artists by organizing exhibitions in unused or abandoned spaces in Cluj-Napoca.
A Tale of Two Plants, 2021
Saussurea Porcii and Nymphaea Lotus var. Thermalis are two endemic plants that went extinct.
Saussurea Porcii went extinct about 100 years ago due to excessive grazing in the area. It was surprisingly found in the past few years but only seen in small bunches and it’s still in great danger and probably has no chance of survival.
Nymphaea Lotus var. Thermalis no longer has a place to grow after many hotels and resorts were built in the 1 Mai area. Profiting from the thermal waters, in time, led to the drying up of the spring and the lake. Due to the pandemic the lake has risen back up and Nymphaea could be seen again but this is only temporary.