Lara Thoms

An APHIDS project

May 15-19

Sydney Opera House

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The Director is a performance starring charismatic ex-funeral director, Scott Turnbull, and artist Lara Thoms. Together the pair demystify elements of the death industry, using humour and first-hand knowledge to dig a little deeper on what happens after we go. Blurring the roles of funeral director and theatre director, Thoms and Turnbull ask each other to perform tasks, share knowledge and give feedback on each other’s actions. Balancing macabre reality, playfulness and the tragic elements of death, the result is a spiky, funny and invigorating performance.

Creators: Lara Thoms, with Scott Turnbull, Aaron Orzech, Lz Dunn

Performers: Lara Thoms, Scott Turnbull

Designer: Katie Sfetkidis

Sound: Kenneth Pennington

Florist: Julia White.

Supported by Artshouse and the Australia Council for the Arts.

Campbelltown Arts Centre

May -July 2019

Heading Down the Wrong Path is a video portrait of 10 year old Harper Neilson who refused to stand for the national anthem during school assembly, commenting that the song "completely disregards the Indigenous Australians who were here before us for for 50,000 years".  The video is silent and is the length of the national anthem.

Blatantly Disrespectful is a series of hand painted tshirts bearing slogans that politicians have recently used to criticise child activists. 

Upcoming - European Tour August

Winner 2017 Greenroom Award Best Production Experimental  + Contemporary Performance.

Welcome to a tropical island full of palm trees, phosphate mines, coconut water and kids. Set against a backdrop of handmade costumes and colonialism, this is an absurd, true story about Leonardo da Vinci, the Pacific, seagull shit and state-sanctioned abuse.

This new work sees Samara Hersch and Lara Thoms collaborate with seven young people in Melbourne in response to Australia’s ongoing relationship with Nauru.

Part school musical, part history lesson and part political probe, We All Know What’s Happening sees people too young to vote confront power, complacency, children’s rights and the future.

"A a sharp and subversive lens on the adult world.... A remarkable insight into Nauru" - The Age

Past | Artshouse July 2017, Campbelltown Arts Centre 2018

Performed and created with: Theo Boltman, Casper Bergman Carthew, Allegra Di Lallo, Lazar Feldman, Finn Owen, Tove Due and Venu Elisaia
Co-created by: Samara Hersch & Lara Thoms
Sound design and composition: Marco Cher- Gibard
Pianist/Collaborator: Grace Ferguson
Lighting Design: Jen Hector
Design: Romanie Harper with Lara Thoms

Stage Manager Cassandra Fumi

Past Collaborators Bridie Noonan, Eve Nixon, Olivia Bishop, Prue Clark

Supported by –
We All Know What’s Happening is supported by Arts House, Creative Victoria and Save the Children

Co -created with Back to Back Theatre, Jason Maling and Marc Cuthbertson

A huge video screen showcases endless images of deeply meaningful and absurdly insignificant objects. With reference to self-publishing on the internet, unboxing videos and Antiques Roadshow, the object is the hero of Single Channel Video.

But as the viewer navigates the space, the journey to the rear of the screen reveals a live performance that is generating the content onscreen. Set within an installation full of everyday objects, a dozen participants take the time to present their items with questions, opinions and personal narratives. Presenting to the camera and to each other, a power play between the self, the object and the viewer builds, oscillating between heart-breaking histories, curious collections and oddball opinions.

Single Channel Video gently dismantles claims of the surface to be entire, revealing that behind the common and sometimes banal, lies the profound.

PICA Perth, FOLA, Artshouse

with Aphids

Do those who object to contemporary art prefer community parades? 

Howl is a celebration of 15 significant moments in art history. A ritual procession starring a sculpture of Captain Cook, thousands of sunflower seeds and a killer whale named Tilikum. A requiem that is unquestionably queer, arguably dangerous and probably obscene. Performed by three women. Scored by Mozart himself.

Created by Willoh S. Weiland, Lara Thoms and Lz Dunn HOWL commemorates controversy – from the furore aroused over a feminist self-portrait and the outrage at a rainbow being burnt repeatedly in a public square, to the indignation of artists arrested on suspicion of bio-terrorism. Howl energetically probes the reactions art can invoke, and the perspective that history permits.

Festival Of Live Art, Artshouse
A publication about Howl featuring all the works that inspired the project can be viewed here.
For video documentation of Howl see here.

The Wake #2 performance and installation as part of Televisions Festival, Performance Space. The festival commemorated the end of analogue television. The Wake #2 was a participatory installation of and live feed of edible static as well as collaborating on a live talkshow with Joy Hruby, an 87yr old Sydney resident who broadcasts television from her garage.

One year to the date of it’s closure, Field Theory present  a homage to a recently closed late-night cultural institution that was 24- hour Italian diner Cafe Romantica.  In this unique place a melting pot of hot topics were embraced across generations over a 5am espressos, 2am pool and homestyle bowls of  spaghetti. Throughout the non-stop, 24-hour performance broadcast, audiences are invited to join a conversation reflecting on this history while looking to the future. Have a wine, make-out, taste Field Theory’s attempt at cooking Café Romantica’s famous ‘Romeo and Juliet’ pasta while speculating on gentrification, romance, late night culture and the future of a suburb in continuous change.

Live at the Brunswick Mechanics Institute – 270 Sydney Road and online www.fieldtheory.com.au

Perth International Arts Festival commission | A Collaboration with Snapcat and Western Australian Womens clubs. 

A large-scale public artwork and performance at Fremantle Oval.

With the inaugural AFL National Women’s League being announced in 2017, Before the Siren is a timely exploration of how women gather socially, politically and recreationally across generations. Part half time entertainment, part political rally this work invited over 300 women to represent their clubs in a grand, choreographed performance. 

Curated by Anne Loxley and Felicity Fenner.

"Lara Thoms and Snapcat take stock of the entire vertical relationship between the individual and the collective on the topic of feminism. It is an entire local history of women's organisations, embodied, present, loud. If AFL has a women's league today, is it because of the accumulated work of these women? Before the Siren suggests, here are the individuals whose labour has made an historical event." 

- Jana Perkovic, Realtime

With | Hannah Gadsby • The Sirens • The Shirleys • The Red Hatters • The Butler Falcons •Girl Guides WA • WA Embroiderers Guild • Reclaim the Night Perth • The Lightning Furies •WA Women Motorcycle Riders • Gorna Liyarn • Gina Riley • Ol’ Girls Footy • Fremantle Dockers Banner Team 

Curated by Anne Loxley and Felicity Fenner

Presented at Liquid Architecture - Polyphonic Social

An experimental performance lecture drawing inspiration from anarchic pranksters The KLF (Jimmy Cauty and Bill Drummond) who believed that  anyone could have a number one hit,  an approach they successfully implemented themselves. Thoms revisits their methodologies including harassing ABBA, burying music awards at Stonehenge and burning a million pounds – plotted out live  through a small diorama of the entire universe.

Presented by The Malthouse and Aphids

A Singular Phenomenon is a 60 minute celebration of one of Australia's most loved and loathed cultural icons. Through a maze of acid trips, stadiums & 'the birth of multiculturalism', this show invites audiences to explore the inner world of a very particular song and the eccentric life of its creator. 

Stretching across five decades of personal, political & pop history, A Singular Phenomenon swerves between intimate revelation and global megalomania. Part rave, part theatre restaurant, this work is a communal meditation on appropriation, the cult of personality and the evolution of cultural stereotypes. 

Unraveling through a series of unexpected clues and interactions, audiences were invited to take part in one of the countless iterations of an Australian hit that refuses to go away.

2015 Green Room Award nomination for Contemporary and Experimental Performance

Created by Lara Thoms with Aaron Orzech & Liz Dunn
Sound Design - Robert Jordan
Lighting Design - Katie Sfetkidis
Set and Costume Design - Lz Dunn & Lara Thoms

Performed by community participants - Angus Ingram, Anna Orzech, Ben Booker, Catherine Ryan, Corey Pugh, Don King, Ellie Frith, Eugene Schlusser, Ingrid Homburg, Jamie Sormann & Jake Goldenfein, Joe Dolce, Kenzie Larsen, Kiki (Libera Luisetto), La Voce Della Luna choir, Lin Van Heck, Liz Dunn, Lucky Pereira, Mark Saul , Marty Shlansky, Matt Hickey, Molly Whelan, Pietro Barbagallo, Reuben Cumming and Shian Law.
 

Melbourne Art Fair 

Exposition was a collection of stalls originally presented at other expos - such as Mind Body Spirit, the Muscle Car expo and Antiques Fair, inserted into the Melbourne Art Fair, live and unadulturated.

Created by Jason Maling and Lara Thoms in collaboration with Thrill: The Cosplay Magazine, Tony Venois, Fredd Briggs, Prudence Mapstone,The ASTROSCAN2000 and Mat Rogers.

As part of Field Theory’s Site is Set and Social Capital curated By Jacqueline Doherty.

It was while navigating the death industry for her secular parents that artist Lara Thoms realised how stilted the Australian funeral industry was.

‘I found a gap in the industry for those who are creative – not religious and not elderly, which is the market that the sheer majority of funeral services target,’ said Thoms.

‘The funeral industry has several different brands that are owned by a single multinational organisation. This monopoly creates a lack of diverse funeral options,' she added.

This experience led Thoms to further explore the industry through her art and she’s now received funding through the Creative State Commissions Program, allowing her to explore her ideas in depth. Thoms and her collaborators Sibling Architecture will explore the concept of constructing a place where people can develop and initiate their own creative funerals. 

Photo Credit:  Sibling, Frenches Interior - Christine Francis

Field Theory

FOR 9000 MINUTES – 6 DAYS – STRAIGHT

We will not leave the market | We will only eat from the market | We will only wear clothes from the market | We will only talk to people at the market | We will sleep at the market | We will bathe at the market  | We will smell like the market | We will breathe the market air  | We will not stop speaking for 9000 minutes live on radio | We will only speak about content related to the market | We will only play music that market workers request.

Melbourne artists collective Field Theory present their most ambitious project yet. To stage a non-stop live broadcast for 9000 minutes at the Queen Victoria Market Melbourne. That’s 6.25 days sleeping, eating and wearing the market. This time frame sees a full week cycle of the market as well as references the 9000 bodies estimated to be buried under the site.

Jason Maling, Lara Thoms, Martyn Coutts, Jackson Castiglione and Sarah Rodigari from Field Theory are joined by Mish Grigor and Bron Batten to endure the non-stop broadcast.

Producers | Anna Schoo (Field Theory) Asha Bee Abraham. Production | Amy Bagshaw.

Part of the Melbourne Biennial Lab, curated by Natalie King as part of Melbourne Festival

Ancient MSG, Gertrude Glasshouse 2015

An unearthing of ancient prophecies, a one hour show – part hardcore musical, part historical internet pantomime, part performance art made by four Indonesian and four Australian Artists: Ican Harem, Tamara Pertamina, Andreas Siagian and Lintang Radittya, Debris Facility, Lara Thoms, Tarquin Manek and Timothy D.

With Wok The Rok

Gallery 4A, Sydney Langgeng Art Foundation, Yogyakarata, Long Division and Incinerator Galleries.

Performance with Damage Inc, 

This work started as a research project as part of a six week residency initiated by Gertrude Contemporary in Jogjakarta with curators Kristi Monfries and Grace Samboh.

Jakarta Whiplash Re-revisited  pays tribute to the 1993 Metallica concert at Lebuk Bulus stadium in Jakarta that resulted in a large-scale riot, and the banning of heavy metal concerts in Java for 10 years, becoming a legendary moment in Indonesian cultural history. This project suggests a trajectory from the 1993 riot to the 1998 student reformation protests which saw the fall of dictator Suharto, right up to the more recent election of Indonesian President Joko Widodo in 2014, a proud metalhead who famously attended many Metallica concerts.

Based on the research, we have designed merchandise that both commemorates the ’93 riot and could be utilised in a new uprising. A Metallica cover-band was invited to perform the Jakarta gig set-list with related social-politic commentary announced in between the songs. This suggested that despite the commodification of metal music, politics can and should intersect with the culture.

This project is commissioned by 4A Centre for Contemporary Asian Art, Sydney and Gertrude Contemporary, Melbourne.

Field Theory

Lancaster Park stadium in Christchurch, NZ had not been open to the public since the February 2011 earthquakes. Jason Maling, Lara Thoms, Martyn Coutts, Jackson Castiglione and Sarah Rodigari lived in the stadium for 72 hrs, broadcasting live as part of this durational perfromance. We entered the research phase blind – knowing very little about sport or history – and came out with thousands of anecdotes, interviews and stories, acknowledging the grief that comes with the closure of a 130 year old site. We found gossip from the VIP stands, fiascos with sponsorship, stories of  21st birthday parties and Bon Jovi gigs.

The Stadium Broadcast offered Cantabrian’s a chance to once again walk on hallowed turf and deliver whatever they needed to, perhaps a eulogy, a haka, a denunciation or a version of Tina Turner’s Private Dancer. These small gestures were broadcast to the world for 72 hours nonstop as a tribute to everything that had ever happened on this hallowed field.

Our content ranged from the Springbok tour protests to earthquakes to streaking, nothing was too big or small to talk about.

This project invited Christchurch to pay homage to the ground as it sat in a state of uncertainty between abandonment and demolition. We were interested in finding what  bound people to this unique place as well as providing a platform that asked how those stories might shape the future of the site.

The archive of the entire broadcast was acquired by the Nga Taonga New Zealand sound Archive.

Presented with the Physics Room.

On the 19th of May 2012 this ball will blow up the spout, hover for a moment and land on a number. If that number corresponds with your telephone number we will begin something together. I will call you on this number every day untill the 19th of May 2013. If it corresponds with a blank space, I will call no one.

- Lara Thoms

Tin Sheds Gallery as part of ‘We need you, you need us" Curated by Georgie Meagher.

The experts project is a three year project documenting unofficial expertise. 

The project draws attention to the passions, skills and wisdom found outside degrees and day jobs. Most experts are strangers I met in public libraries.

The casual dialogical process is completed when each expert takes a portrait of me as themselves. Often dressed in their clothes at their homes, I am photographed by multiple individuals to signify the exchange of knowledge.

I then share all that I have learnt over the period in a three hour durational lesson showcasing photographs, instructional texts and accounts of the process. 

Presented at the Museum of Contemporary Art Sydney as part of Local Positioning Systems curated by Performance Space.

Supported by The Australia Council for the Arts, Punctum arts, Performance Space and Campbeltown Arts Centre.

Presented at Tiny Stadiums Festival and Campbeltown Art Centre as part of exhibition New Work, Old Tricks.

An immersive site-specific project located in Westfield Hurstville, the shopping centre at the heart of this Sydney suburb. Created in collaboration with youth from the local area, Ultimate Vision was a series of subtle interventions into the retail and marketing spaces of the mall. Thoms’ response to the commission’s requirements was an incisive and subversive two-part project which co-opted marketing and retail strategies, capitalised on the contradictions of the commission’s context, and critiqued the status of youth as socially excluded but also a highly sought after, elusive and unpredictable retail market. Thoms deftly receded behind her aesthetics of stealth for a sustained and engaged intervention into not only the structure of the shopping centre, but the dialogues that occurs within it.

- Anne Loxley, Curator, Museum of Contemporary Art

Context is always there, even within a  gallery space, the gift shop, the cafe, the staff, the location, the financial structures all impact on how we perceive art.

Hello Big Institution is a free online course for high school students in years 8-11. Created in by Australian artist Lara Thoms, it allows participants to engage directly with Lara and the MCA Learning team. The course runs over a four-week period, during which Lara  and her past collaborator Kevin Duo Jin explore artist practices that work outside and around gallery spaces – engaging with the people, power, and place(s) that they are situated in.

Many of the ideas presented in the course relate to unusual art practices that might be situated outside of a gallery space or directly consider their relationship to an art institution. Specially designed tasks, games, videos and interventions into the MCA are part of the course.

Week One Art and Money

Week Two Edible Art

Week Three Site and Power

Week Four Art and People

Performance Lecture at Radial System V Berlin as part of the Hybrid Arts festival and Residency.

Drawing on the history and operations of the building, this performance lecture re-imagined what came before as a proposal to move forward.

An installation of 147 hampers, built out of items only bought from the local shopping strip, using the entire materials fee offered. This number reflected the statistic of locals who filed for bankruptcy in the last financial year.

Part of ‘There’s  A Hole in the Sky’, Campbelltown Arts Centre, curated by Tom Polo.

Inflate My Heart with 1000 Gushes of Wind

With Corey Coda.

Video and performance work in collaboration with inflatable skydancers and the transgender community.

Presented at Underbelly festival, Cockatoo Island, Sydney, Artshouse ‘Hot August Nights’, Melbourne and 'BYOB’ Tristan Koenig Gallery Melbourne.

Pie invited members of the public to share a pie with an artist on the lawn of the MCA. After going through a menu of conversation starters, the participant could decide if they wanted to continue to chat and eat the pie with rhe artist, or through the pie in their face.

MCA Primavera 2009 as part of spat+loogie.

Amy Spiers and I put a call out for people with online dating profiles to meet with us. We caught up with a range of singles, interviewed them at their houses and then presented portraits and items from their lives in the vitrines at Platfrom Gallery Melbourne. These expanded public profiles questioned ideas of representation and intimacy as well as the form of participatory art. Passers by were invited to contact the singles through us.