2013 - Hominide

Collaborative project by Otilia Cadar and Liviu Coman

HOMINIDE was the second collaborative project developed together with artist Liviu Coman, continuing our activity as an artistic group.

Conceived as a fictional archaeological discovery presented through the language of scientific research, the project explored how visual authority, institutional framing, and collective desire can shape belief. Through fabricated documents, invented anthropological theories, painting, installation, animation, sound, and exhibition design, we constructed the mythology of several prehistoric humanoid species believed to have evolved in parallel with Homo sapiens during the Anthropogene period.

At the beginning, the fictional nature of the project remained intentionally ambiguous. Many visitors initially believed the discoveries to be authentic, transforming the exhibition into an experiment about trust, speculation, and the fragile boundary between knowledge and invention.

Three imagined hominid subspecies formed the core of the exhibition: Homo cnidaria, Homo lucanus, and Homo hydroxyapatite. Based on invented “archaeological findings,” we reconstructed their portraits and cranial structures through multiple interconnected media.

I created three large-scale oil paintings depicting the humanoid species, while Liviu Coman developed site-specific sculptural and digital extensions for each work:

• Homo lucanus was accompanied by two monumental red horn-like fossil forms, each approximately three meters long, installed on both sides of the painting.

• Homo hydroxyapatite included a metal structure physically emerging from the painted figure.

• Homo cnidaria expanded through animated coral-like forms growing from the head of the creature.

The exhibition was accompanied by an original sound environment composed entirely by Liviu Coman, functioning as a continuous immersive layer throughout the space.

For this project, we did not only create the artworks. We created the entire institution surrounding them.

Together, we founded 1Zi Art Space (One Day Art Space), an independent temporary gallery conceived specifically for this exhibition and open for only a single day in the center of Bucharest. The temporary nature of the space became part of the concept itself: the exhibition existed almost like a brief cultural apparition, creating urgency and attracting a large audience who understood there would be no second opportunity to experience it.

Working entirely without institutional funding, we financed and produced the project ourselves from beginning to end. We rented the location, designed and constructed new exhibition walls inside the space because the original architecture could not be modified.

At the time of the exhibition, I was eight months pregnant with my first child, a state that subtly influenced the project’s atmosphere and themes of creation, origins, ancestry, transformation, and the search for human roots.

A deeply personal memory also remains attached to the opening. During a long and difficult illness that he had fought for seventeen years, my father insisted on contributing to the exhibition by buying his favorite dry red wine for the opening. Four days after the exhibition, he passed away.

Mediums: Oil painting, installation, animation, sound.
Paintings: Oil on canvas, 100 × 150 cm
Location: 1Zi Art Space, Bucharest
Duration: One-day exhibition