VALENTINA LACMA(nović) is a French-Croatian performance artist and interdisciplinary creator whose work spans experimental video, live art, and collaborative research across artistic and academic domains. Based in Amsterdam, she is internationally acclaimed for her distinctive approach to performance, which blends embodied knowledge, altered states of consciousness, and ritualistic practices into transformative aesthetic experiences.
For over two decades, Valentina has developed a singular performance practice at the intersection of ritual and contemporary art. Her work engages transcultural feminine traditions and trance-based movement vocabularies—most notably whirling, continuous spinningspiraling, temporal distortion, and object balancing—as tools to reconfigure perception and embodied experience. Inspired by anthropological and philosophical research as well as the legacy of postmodern dance (Laura Dean, Andy de Groat), her approach explores the body as a place of transformation, capable of bending time, altering perception and activating altered states of consciousness through repetition, ritualisation and immersion. Through these explorations, Valentina creates performances that invite audiences into liminal spaces where sensory experience becomes a catalyst for critical reflection, emotional resonance, and collective presence. Her performances interrogate dominant narratives and engage with urgent global concerns such as climate change, patriarchy, and the Anthropocene. The body is her central medium—a living archive, instrument, and conduit—through which intellectual, spiritual, and sensory dimensions intersect. Lacmanović holds a Master’s degree in Philosophy and Aesthetics from the University of Paris VIII and trained at the esteemed Conservatoire National Supérieur d'Art Dramatique (CNSAD) in Paris. Fluent in five languages, she brings a richly layered, intercultural perspective to her work, both as a performer and artistic director. Since 2003, her in-depth research into the relationship between ritual and artistic performance has informed a prolific and evolving practice, culminating in physically demanding, visually arresting performances and video works. Her oeuvre bears a recognisable signature: conceptually rigorous, viscerally immediate, and rooted in embodied presence. Valentina's work has been presented in leading international venues and festivals, including the Palais de Tokyo and the Musée des Arts et Métiers in Paris, the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam, Museo La Neomudéjar in Madrid, and the Emanuel Vigeland Museum in Oslo, Château de Montsoreau-Museum of Contemporary Art, among others. From institutional performative spaces to site-specific locations, her work continues to challenge perception, provoke inquiry and invite radical reimagining. Lecturer (Performance Art, Physical Theatre) and research mentor at Fontys Academy of Arts (Academy of CIrcus and Performance Art) in Tilburg (since 2018).Member of HDLU (Croatian Association of Fine Artists)
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