MARIJA NEMČENKO – ARTIST, LIAA MEMBER WORKING IN LIAA STUDIO IN CULTURAL CENTRE SODAS 2123

2022-04-14

The Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists Association annually provides members with a creative study at the cultural centre SODAS 2123 to carry out creative activities and develop projects. 04/01 – 07/31/2022 studio will be used by an artist Marija Nemčenko for the creation of a new exhibition “IN THE HANDS OF OUR ECLECTIC PHYSICIANS”, which will be presented in the Swallow project space.

Marija’s works will intertwine interpretations of the market as an intercultural space and the existing socio-economic relations and the roles of tea traders, which are represented in the artist’s work as socio-economic spaces capable of treating capitalist progress. The project will pay special attention to the gaurometer, who is not only popular among market traders and buyers, but is also said to treat soil degraded by industrial progress or burned by fires. While maneuvering between alternative medicine and alternative economies, the artist will use the studio to create an installation of a a counter-café at the Naujininkai market, a sound installation in the Swallow project space and a garage tea workshop with SODAS 2123 founder Aušra Vismantaitė in August-September.

Maria Nemčenko’s practice is connected with exploring “Eastern Europeanness,” a fragmented understanding of this already geopolitically changed region and its historical, social, political, and environmental connections with the rest of the world. Reflections on migration and identity politics are often revealed in this eclecticism of Marija’s Eastern European futurism. In her works, the artist makes connections, tries to transfer and acquire knowledge from outside the traditional knowledge transfer frame. Learning from birds, plants and gossip in the market, in her practice it creates a kind of fictional world that can sometimes reveal more about our everyday reality than a direct look at it.

Mary holds a Bachelor of Arts in Sculpture from the University of the Arts in London in 2013 and a Master of Arts in Visual Arts from the Glasgow School of Art in 2016. She is a co-founder of BRUT Collective. Her and BRUT Collective’s works can be found at www.marijanemcenko.com and www.brutcollective.com

Photo by Callum Leo Hughes. Documentation from IVANKA CHAI 2018, Berlin Project Space Festival.