Dana Olărescu (b. 1985, România) is a socially engaged artist working at the intersection of installation, performance, and social design, who focuses on challenging minority exclusion and environmental injustice. Through participatory methodologies that democratise access to art and knowledge, she aims to give underserved migrant groups and people habitually excluded from decision-making processes the agency to become active co-producers of culture. 

Between 2011 and 2018, Dana formed one half of There There, a performance company concerned with reclaiming Eastern European identity in the West. They toured work to various festivals focused on migrant and refugee art; collaborated with social researchers and advocacy organisations; and co-created performances with numerous participants, enabling conversation between minority groups. 

Latest publications include:

‘Practising Migration’ in Art, Migration, and the Production of Radical Democratic Citizenship

‘Place-Based Socially Engaged Practice’; ‘Socially Engaged Art: Desperately Seeking Solidarity’; and ‘The Great Dying’ in Collaborative Incubator: An Entry Point to a Story

‘Challenging narratives through collaborative storytelling’ in SHIFT! Actions for Migrating Perspectives magazine

‘Socially Plagued’ in Social Works? Open journal

‘When Grief and Joy Collide’ in Assets of Community Value magazine. 

Her projects have been supported by, among others, the Arts Council, a-n, Counterpoints, UCL Culture, Invisible Dust, London South Bank University, and Urban Wilderness, and presented at institutions in the UK and abroad, including the Tate Modern, the London Short Film Festival, the National Maritime Museum, the Low Carbon Design Institute, Art Gene, Art House Jersey, Art Walk Projects, x-church, in-situ, Incheon Art Platform (South Korea), La Virgule (France), and Tanzhaus NRW (Germany). 

Dana has given talks, lectures, and facilitated at arts institutions and universities including the UCL Postsocialist Art Centre, the UCL Trellis Network, the New School of the Anthropocene, the Create Autumn School on Cultural Diversity and Collaborative Practice (Ireland), the Create Summer School on Collaborative Practice and Social Change (Ireland), the Kaunas Capital of Culture Online School (Lithuania), and the HOLIS Interdisciplinary Summer School on Social Innovation through Design (Poland).

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Theatre Directing from the I.L. Caragiale National University of Theatre and Film, Bucharest, Romania (2008) and a master’s degree in Performance Making from Goldsmiths University, London, UK (2010).

CV and portfolio available upon request.