Arūnas Spraunius – LIAA MEMBER WORKING IN LIAA STUDIO IN CULTURAL CENTRE SODAS 2123 IN March-April 2023

Every year, the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association provides members with a studio in the cultural center SODAS 2123 for creative activities and project development. In March-April 2023, the artist Arūnas Spraunius will use the LIAA creative studio in the cultural complex SODAS 2123 to work on his novel-heroic epic “A Psychoanalyst to Himself, Enchanted by the Experts’ Conclusion that it turns out that we are all afraid of dying”.

Arūnas Spraunius is an ironic observer and interpreter who reflects on and often ridicules the contemporary world in his art. His prose and poetry style is characterised by constructiveness, irony and elements of the absurd. He often weaves the facts of distant history with events of the present day to create intrigue; he sharpens the characters of his protagonists by giving them contrasting traits and unexpected actions. Spraunius is one of the few who, after independence, tried to write differently, in a new way, as adequately as possible to the situation of our times, which has been, and will probably remain, essentially characterised by the concept of postmodernism” (Antanas A. Jonynas).
In the novel Sulamita (1996), he depicted the dramatic love story of a young girl in a traditional style. The collections of poems “Exaltations” (1998), “The Kingdom of Self-Destruction” (1999), “Letos pliažai saulėti” (2004), “Siaubingai herojiškai “(2012) are characterised by fragmented phrases, prose-like language, attention to detail, and the variation of paradoxes of everyday situations, quoting and parodying elements of mass culture. He has also published a collection of novellas “Silence!” (2003), a collection of essays “Professionals’ Godos”; “We are Children of Alcoholics” (2007), a novel “Isto(e)rija apie šoferį Sofiją” (2011), a book of journalism “Energeiniai karai” (Energy Wars) (2013), and a collection 99: Selected Texts (2015).

Cultural centre SODAS 2123 is a space founded by the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists Association based on the principles of community and self-government, where more than a dozen cultural creators and researchers from different fields experiment and look for unexpected formats and respond to the latest cultural, social, geopolitical and ecological issues.

Activities of LIAA are financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.

Main information partner – 15 min.