Hi, I’m Noemi Gunea, a London based Romanian performance artist.
I make art about wellness, ideology, and the digestive system. Sometimes there’s meditation. Sometimes there’s screaming. At best of times, there’s both.
I trained in performance at Central Saint Martins and as an actor at the National Theatre Conservatoire in Paris, but most of what I know comes through my gut, which I feed exquisitely well and urge you to do the same.
Current artworld trends would call me a creative health practitioner, but I’d rather go for lover of fermented goods. My way of being and making is influenced by my practice as an improviser and yoga teacher.
I care about your gut and about your emotional wellbeing. I aim to create spaces where ambiguity and curiosity help us connect deeply to ourselves and to each other, so that we break the cycle of polarity and transform the world inside and around us. My plan is to be radically optimistic, yet still critical and edgy.
I’ve shown work at the British Museum, Tate Modern, Royal Academy of Arts, South London Gallery, Arebyte Gallery, Pleasance Theatre, BAC and CPT.
I’ve been on shortlists for New Contemporaries (2025,2024), UK New Artist of the Year (2022), BBC Audio Drama Award (2020), Aesthetica Prize (2019). I would appreciate a prize soon, ideally a Turner.
WORKS
2025 ‘Zen and Zeros’ shortlisted for New Contemporaries and shown at New Art Exchange Nottingham
a live performance blending surreal comedy, yoga, and guided meditation to explore wellness, ideology and collective care
2025 ‘We give the sky its colours’ novel shortlisted for W&A Working Class Writers Prize
a literary novel exploring addiction and codependency through a relationship between two migrants working in fashion in East London
2024 Yin Yoga with Balkan music performance at Pushkin House
a creative yin yoga session on balkan music, preceeded by a beetroot ceremony
2024 Exhibition of prints ‘Mother is a way of moving’ St Peter’s Church, Derby
a series of three prints that explore how we can all adopt the idea of motherhood as way of relating to the world around us
2024 Artist in Residence with UKNA ‘Take Place’ in Belper
2024 Zen and Zeros (work in progress) shown at Camden People’s Theatre and Wimbledon College of Arts
2023 Artist in Residence for King’s College London
working with Cuban researcher Mabel Machado Lopez
2023 SEEDED Artist in Residence for London College of Fashion
working with Eastern European diaspora communities in Newham to share stories of sustainable fashion from past, present and future
2023 ‘Post-soviet Tarot readings’ Nunnery Gallery and in Rotherham at the Palace of Possibility
drew and wrote a tarot deck from people’s stories of sustainable fashion in communist times and read people’s fortunes while connecting them to their soviet alter egos
2022 ‘Food Resilience’ collab with Dana Olarescu, Calthorpe Community Gardens
weekly meetings with Eastern European diaspora communities in Kings Cross to talk food preservation, sharing recipes, mutual aid programmes and ideas around food as politics. created a zine and a public event as an outcome
2022 ‘Critical Dance’ collab with Dana Olarescu and Anca Dimofte, Chisenhale Dance Space
an interactive dance performance looking at our relationship to the plant and fungi world
2021 ‘Miss the Met’ at the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival of Philosophy in Hampstead Heath
two models wearing crowns with oranges talk to everyone about why Universal Basic Income can be a vitamin C boost for the community
2021 ‘Basic Beach’ in London Fields
a park performance of what life could feel like with Universal Basic Income
2021 ‘Sounds good to me’ on Ridley Road and Roman Road
giving out free oranges in the street with the benefits of Universal Basic Income written on them and performing a sketch to stir up your thoughts about safety nets for all
2021 ‘Summer Night’ for Creativity, Culture and Capital, commissioned by Nesta
responding to Shakespeare through video poetry
2020 ‘Free Your Mind’ - radio play shortlisted for BBC Audio Drama Award *
two models travel back in time to Ancient Greece to find Pandora’s Lid and rid the world of all suffering
2019 ‘Boiling Point’ Crypt Gallery
how long do you need to scream at a cup of tea to get it warm? a performance about divisiness and colonial nostalgia
2019 ‘She Dances’ Camden People’s Theatre x British Library *
a community engagement project encouraging teenage girls to take up space in public by dancing uncontrollably
2019 ‘Give me a hand’ Tate Exchange
giving the audience clay mobile phones and making them listen to the news to see how our gestures change and impact the material world around us
2017 ‘Pillow Pop Girls’ Arebyte Gallery *
the biggest pillow fight in a gallery, or how pop music antagonises women against each other
2017 ‘Picture This’ British Museum *
an hommage to pop art by being half naked and subversive in front of the Parthenon Marbles
2016 ‘Bal du passe’ Royal Academy of Arts *
an interactive performance whispering sweet nothings to participants of the RA late, dizzying them through dance and prompting them to get out of their comfort zone
*projects created as part of performance duo Cheap Thrills
2025 ‘Zen and Zeros’ shortlisted for New Contemporaries and shown at New Art Exchange Nottingham
a live performance blending surreal comedy, yoga, and guided meditation to explore wellness, ideology and collective care
2025 ‘We give the sky its colours’ novel shortlisted for W&A Working Class Writers Prize
a literary novel exploring addiction and codependency through a relationship between two migrants working in fashion in East London
2024 Yin Yoga with Balkan music performance at Pushkin House
a creative yin yoga session on balkan music, preceeded by a beetroot ceremony
2024 Exhibition of prints ‘Mother is a way of moving’ St Peter’s Church, Derby
a series of three prints that explore how we can all adopt the idea of motherhood as way of relating to the world around us
2024 Artist in Residence with UKNA ‘Take Place’ in Belper
2024 Zen and Zeros (work in progress) shown at Camden People’s Theatre and Wimbledon College of Arts
2023 Artist in Residence for King’s College London
working with Cuban researcher Mabel Machado Lopez
2023 SEEDED Artist in Residence for London College of Fashion
working with Eastern European diaspora communities in Newham to share stories of sustainable fashion from past, present and future
2023 ‘Post-soviet Tarot readings’ Nunnery Gallery and in Rotherham at the Palace of Possibility
drew and wrote a tarot deck from people’s stories of sustainable fashion in communist times and read people’s fortunes while connecting them to their soviet alter egos
2022 ‘Food Resilience’ collab with Dana Olarescu, Calthorpe Community Gardens
weekly meetings with Eastern European diaspora communities in Kings Cross to talk food preservation, sharing recipes, mutual aid programmes and ideas around food as politics. created a zine and a public event as an outcome
2022 ‘Critical Dance’ collab with Dana Olarescu and Anca Dimofte, Chisenhale Dance Space
an interactive dance performance looking at our relationship to the plant and fungi world
2021 ‘Miss the Met’ at the HowTheLightGetsIn Festival of Philosophy in Hampstead Heath
two models wearing crowns with oranges talk to everyone about why Universal Basic Income can be a vitamin C boost for the community
2021 ‘Basic Beach’ in London Fields
a park performance of what life could feel like with Universal Basic Income
2021 ‘Sounds good to me’ on Ridley Road and Roman Road
giving out free oranges in the street with the benefits of Universal Basic Income written on them and performing a sketch to stir up your thoughts about safety nets for all
2021 ‘Summer Night’ for Creativity, Culture and Capital, commissioned by Nesta
responding to Shakespeare through video poetry
2020 ‘Free Your Mind’ - radio play shortlisted for BBC Audio Drama Award *
two models travel back in time to Ancient Greece to find Pandora’s Lid and rid the world of all suffering
2019 ‘Boiling Point’ Crypt Gallery
how long do you need to scream at a cup of tea to get it warm? a performance about divisiness and colonial nostalgia
2019 ‘She Dances’ Camden People’s Theatre x British Library *
a community engagement project encouraging teenage girls to take up space in public by dancing uncontrollably
2019 ‘Give me a hand’ Tate Exchange
giving the audience clay mobile phones and making them listen to the news to see how our gestures change and impact the material world around us
2017 ‘Pillow Pop Girls’ Arebyte Gallery *
the biggest pillow fight in a gallery, or how pop music antagonises women against each other
2017 ‘Picture This’ British Museum *
an hommage to pop art by being half naked and subversive in front of the Parthenon Marbles
2016 ‘Bal du passe’ Royal Academy of Arts *
an interactive performance whispering sweet nothings to participants of the RA late, dizzying them through dance and prompting them to get out of their comfort zone
*projects created as part of performance duo Cheap Thrills