Lázara Rosell Albear

About the Artist

Lázara Rosell Albear is a Cuban-Belgian interdisciplinary artist, performer, filmmaker, musician and curator. Born in Havana, she studied medicine in Cuba before graduating in film from KASK School of Arts in Ghent, Belgium. For more than two decades she has worked at the intersection of performance, film, sound art, new media and visual arts.

Her work has been presented in major international institutions, including WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels, Kanal-Centre Pompidou, Tate Modern in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris and Bozar. She has collaborated with renowned artists such as Alain Platel, Anne Teresa De Keersmaeker and Sammy Baloji. She is the founder of MahaWorks and the international experimental dance film festival DANSCAMDANSE.

Combining Afro-Cuban cultural heritage, sound experimentation, performance and audiovisual practices, Rosell Albear explores memory, identity, the body, migration and communication in the age of new technologies. Her works often take the form of immersive experiences in which image, movement, sound and improvisation merge into a shared narrative.

“Unsurrounded”

“Unsurrounded” is an ongoing solo performance series developed since 2011. Using drums, electronics, field recordings, voice, pocket trumpet and projected visuals, Rosell Albear creates site-responsive performances that evolve through improvisation and interaction with the space.

Sound, movement, image and text collide in a multilayered experience situated between concert, performance art and audiovisual installation. The artist treats documentation of previous works as a living archive, continuously transformed and reactivated within new performances.

The latest version of “Unsurrounded” reflects on 25 years of MahaWorks. It is a poetic exploration of memory, future possibilities and constant transformation, drawing inspiration from Afro-Cuban culture, experimental music and new media art.