Artist talk with Lucian Indrei

About

*Lucian Indrei (b. 1983), lives and works in Cluj-Napoca, Romania. His work spirals from analyzing and representing personal relationships and events to various topics of interest: in what manner the production and distribution of images condition the perception of images, to what degree our culture is a mixture of fiction and truth, and by what means images helped achieve that; how technology is conditioning the way we communicate and in which we perceive the world. He is one of the cofounders of Lateral ArtSpace, an artist-run initiative from Cluj-Napoca, Romania.

**Smiling Back at Strangers is the first publication about Lateral ArtSpace. Produced in 2022, the book compiles the visual diary of the trajectory made by Lateral ArtSpace since it was founded in 2012, until the day of the publication. The book is meant to offer visibility to the invisible work behind an artist run initiative, the social engagement it sustaines and human connections it nourishes. It is only meant as a case study, not to be mistaken for a generalization of how artist-run spaces operate but an insight of a specific initiative, in a specific country, at a specific moment in time. The book was published in Romania and co-funded by the Administration of the National Cultural Fund in Romania.

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The event is part of the LATERAL ENDEAVORS 2023 project initiated by Lateral ArtSpace (Cluj-Napoca, Romania) and organized in partnership with the Living Art Museum (Reykjavik, Iceland). The artist's visit to Iceland is part of a two week artist residency funded under the RO-Culture Bilateral Fund, implemented by the Project Management Unit within the Ministry of Culture in Romania, with the support of the EEA Grants 2014 - 2021.