Luna Nera is a London-based group concerned with creating site-responsive mixed media work. Our projects feed public curiosity about forgotten spaces, and at the same time expose art in ways that are completely different to the accepted demarcation for art-consumption.

Luna Nera has been working as an artist-curator group since 1997 in London. During this time we have created a number of large-scale live and visual art events in disused premises.

Luna Nera aims to stimulate interest in the environmental and architectural heritage of localities. By asking the audience to re-look at sites in a new way, Luna Nera addresses a series of issues around ideas of society, community, history, memory and public space. Our mission is to reclaim disused or abandoned "forgotten" spaces through art. The work is created and presented in direct response to the environment, transcribing histories, memories, textures and functions into art.

Luna Nera is concerned with exploring the conjunction of theory and practice in site-specific/site-responsive work, through a series of projects that also include text, talks and workshops.

The first show emerged from a spontaneous explosion of energy and a necessity for an alternative space where each can evolve towards the same goal (an event), and have the freedom to experiment, explore, transform and diverge as far as they desire. Each artist was chosen for their similar attitude towards the delivery of artistic concerns, their ability to deliver quality work and their understanding of the space they were to evolve in. It became very obvious to the members of our group that there was a real shortage of opportunities for the practitioners and public alike to experience 'misplaced buildings.'

Our brief is to work within spaces, which have a specific former use, and to present installation and performance works that evoke a response to the environment.

Typically we choose high-profile vacant spaces of cultural or infra-structural significance (a former theatre, riding school, bank, factories, synagogue, prison, electricity generating station) in order to highlight how the social focus has shifted in current times.

In our work we create a means for live art to happen. The performers/ artists are invited by us not simply to perform but to participate in the creation of a total experience. The live art is the final stage in the creative process for the group; it represents a kind of consecration of the creative environment. >from *Luna Nera site*.

related context
> kronstadt 2004. interconnection. 'interconnection' will seek to blur the boundaries of dichotomies such as art/life, past/present, nature/civilisation, public/private. june 25-27, 2004
> civic tv: alternative visions of the urban experience. november 21, 2003
> psy-geo-conflux: the meaning of living in a city. may 14, 2003

imago
> leap on public curiosity