Māra Traumane is an art historian and curator, working as a researcher at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture of the Art Academy of Latvia. Her research focuses on neo-avant-garde and performance art practices in Eastern Europe after World War II. She is currently pursuing her doctoral dissertation on the "Workshop for the Restoration of Unfinished Feelings" (1982-1989). As a freelancer she collaborated with the Center for New Media Culture RIXC and other creative projects ranging from the recovery of 80s samizdat novels and manifestos to the development of web-based scripting tools. Since the 2000s she curated and co-curated several exhibitions, on the theme of sound and new media projects. Between 2014—2017 Traumane was a research fellow in the project “Literatur und Kunst vor Gericht: Fokus Osteuropa” at the Seminar for Slavonic Studies at the University of Zürich. Her texts on interdisciplinary art and performance in Eastern Europe, feminist readings of the legacy of women artists, and the art of socialist realism in Latvia have appeared in numerous international publications and in the journal ARTMargins. She is also the co-editor of the anthology “Kunst vor Gericht. Ästhetische Debatten im Gerichtssaal“ (Berlin: Matthes&Seitz, 2018, with Sandra Frimmel).
