Recently relocated to the qathet Regional District of British Columbia, Canada, Laara Cerman’s work investigates the natural world through sculpture and image making, informed by ecology, and botany. Her explorations continue into the coastal forests of British Columbia, where she studies the often overlooked diversity of the forest floor from plants, mosses, lichen, fungi, insects, and decay, both as inspiration and material. In an era where this knowledge has lost its priority but not its importance, she seeks to rekindle curiosity, reverence, and a sense of reciprocity between humans and the natural world.

 

Laara creates her photographic work by capturing multiple digital images and assembling them in post-production, a skill she acquired through nearly two decades of experience as a freelance retoucher in the commercial photography industry. Now focusing on sculpture, she works with brass, copper, and fiber to create pieces that blend natural motifs with traditional craft. These works often reference botanical and ecological forms, reflecting themes of decay and rebirth. By embracing physical materials and slow processes, she intentionally departs from the speed of digital media, even as she continues to integrate digital tools into her practice. Drawing on her experience in photographic retouching, she seeks to bridge the tactile and digital, the organic and synthetic, the ancient and contemporary.

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In her creative exploration, she is drawn to timeless practices shared across cultures, such as plant knowledge, working with fiber, shaping metal. While culture is often rooted in place, what of those born far from the countries of their racial identity, disconnected to their ancestral background? It is this sense of disconnection that draws her more deeply into the natural world and ancient human practices. Though she engages with age-old traditions in a contemporary manner, she remains fluent in digital mediums, seeking to bring together these seemingly disparate ways of being.

 

A recipient of the inaugural David Suzuki Foundation Rewilding Arts Prize in 2022, Laara currently has work in a group exhibition with fellow prize recipients at the Canadian Museum of Nature. Additionally, a selection from her photographic series Codex Pacificus  is touring Spain as part of the Ellas Illustran Botánica group exhibition. Her public artwork, ranging from 2D vinyl murals to sculptural installations, can be found across various municipalities in British Columbia.