The project \u2018Take a Video Camera and Travel the World\u2019 consists of the presentation of a programme of films with the same title in Lyon in November 2024 during the Lithuanian season in France 2024, together with a talk by the curators of the film programme. This event is presented as a collaboration between Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association, Studio Ganek, La Halle Pont en Royans and Le Polaris de Corbas.
\nThe film programme ‘Take a Video Camera and travel the world’ takes the political demonstration of 1989 titled The Baltic Way as its starting point. It aims to highlight the tradition of local video art making among Lithuanian contemporary artists of different generations, active between 1989 and the present time, with an intention to talk about the independence and the liberation from the occupational regime, about archiving and highlighting related personal narratives, which continue up to present times, about reflecting the current mental state of artists, responding to ongoing geopolitical crisis and the flashbacks from the recent past.<\/p>\n
\u2018Take a video camera and travel the world\u2019, said Skirmantas Valiulis, famous Lithuanian philologist, photography, television and film critic, art historian \u2013 in his 1993 article titled \u2018New Horizons\u2019, published in the magazine Kinas. And this encouragement very aptly describes the situation, the specifics and even the aesthetics of the beginning of the videoart making in Lithuania. As soon as Lithuania regained its independence, its filmmakers were indeed keen to capture and document their environment and to try out the video camera \u2013 the new, more accessible tool. However, this phrase is much more capacious and can be used to describe not only the beginnings of video art in Lithuania, but also the inexorable desire to experiment and discover something new, and finally, it can also be used to describe a sense of liberation \u2013 liberation from the Soviet occupation and from subsequent post-Soviet (and not only) traumas.<\/p>\n
Year 2024 marks the 35th anniversary of The Baltic Way. By reconnecting the past with the present political realities it drives us into reconsideration of the existing geopolitical threats and the meaning of the civic resilience. The film programme \u2018Take a video camera and travel the world\u2019 consists of three separate artist films by well known Lithuanian artists, members of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association \u2013 Dainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius, Emilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117 and Darius \u017di\u016bra. They all delve into different fields of research and explore specific contexts of their present \u2013 intimate home space, rural village community rituals, geopolitical struggles in relation to leftovers of the Cold War energy structures.<\/p>\n
The programme starts on the 5th of November with a screening by the film Gustoniai in Gustoniai by Darius \u017di\u016bra at Le Polaris de Corbas. Then on the 15th of November the screening of Emilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117\u2019s film Burial at Institut d’art contemporain de Villeurbanne will be accompanied by the conversation with programme curators Danute Gambickait\u0117 and Lina Rukevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117. On the 5th of December a screening of Dainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius’ film The Modern Flat will take place at Fondation Takini. All three films of the programme will also be screened at the contemporary art centre La Halle Pont-en-Royans, outside of the city of Lyon, one filme each Saturday starting from the 16th of November.<\/p>\n
This event is organised as part of the Ciconia Ciconia project, which is jointly realised by the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association (LIAA), Studio Ganek (Lyon), La Halle (Pont-en-Royans) and Le Polaris de Corbas, in collaboration with Moly-Sabata \/ Fondation Albert Gleizes (Sablons) and La Fabrique des Luddites (Chatte). As part of the Ciconia Ciconia project, two of the film screening locations \u2013 Le Polaris and La Halle \u2013 are also hosting solo exhibitions by Lithuanian artists Jelena \u0160kulis and Ona Juci\u016bt\u0117 at the time of the screening.
\nThis project is part of the Season of Lithuania in France 2024.<\/p>\n
The Season is organized by the Lithuanian culture Institute and the French Institute in Paris. LIAA activities are financed by the Lithuanian council for culture and Vilnius city municipality.<\/p>\n
Film screening dates and locations<\/p>\n
05\/11\/2024, 20.00
\nDarius \u017di\u016bra \u2018Gustoniai in Gustoniai\u2019
\nLocation: Le Polaris de Corbas (Lyon)<\/p>\n
15\/11\/2024, 18.00
\nEmilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117 \u2018Burial\u2019
\nLocation: Institut d’art contemporain de Villeurbanne<\/p>\n
05\/12\/2024
\nDainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius \u2018The Modern Flat\u2019
\nLocation: Fondation Takini<\/p>\n
16-30\/11\/2024
\nEmilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117 \u2018Burial\u2019
\nDarius \u017di\u016bra \u2018Gustoniai in Gustoniai\u2019
\nDainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius \u2018The Modern Flat\u2019
\nLocation: La Halle Pont en Royans<\/p>\n
Film descriptions<\/p>\n
BURIAL
\nEmilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117
\n60 min.
\nLithuania, Norway, 2022, documentary<\/p>\n
A python slithers and curls over the abandoned control room of Chernobyl\u2019s sister, the Ignalina Nuclear Power Plant, its radioactive core an unleashed monster that will slither through time for a million years. From Etruscan ruins and sunken cities to the most modern of underground repositories, director Emilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117 follows our attempts to bury the immortal. Addressing the epochal effects of nuclear technology on all levels, Burial follows the cycle of power, an eternal return, another serpent eating its tail.
\nTrailer: https:\/\/youtu.be\/U2HtgGQyr2w<\/p>\n
Emilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117 is an artist and filmmaker. Working between documentary and the imaginary, \u0160karnulyt\u0117 makes films and immersive installations exploring deep time and invisible structures, from the cosmic and geologic to the ecological and political. Winner of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize, \u0160karnulyt\u0117 represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano and was included in the Baltic Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Biennale of Architecture. With solo exhibitions at Tate Modern (2021), Kunsthaus Pasquart (2021), Den Frie (2021), National Gallery of Art in Vilnius (2021), CAC (2015) and Kunstlerhaus Bethanien (2017), she has participated in group shows at Ballroom Marfa, Seoul Museum of Art, Kadist Foundation, and the First Riga Biennial. In 2022, \u0160karnulyt\u0117 participated in the group exhibition Penumbra organized by Fondazione In Between Art Film on the occasion of the 59th Venice Biennale. Her numerous prizes include the Kino der Kunst Project Award, Munich (2017); Spare Bank Foundation DNB Artist Award (2017), and the National Lithuanian Art Prize for Young Artists (2016)), and she was nominated as the candidate for the Ars Fennica art award 2023. She received an undergraduate degree from the Brera Academy of Art in Milan and holds a masters from the Troms\u00f8 Academy of Contemporary Art.
\nHer films are in the IFA, Kadist Foundation and Centre Pompidou collections and have been screened at the Serpentine Gallery, UK, Centre Pompidou, France, and the Museum of Modern Art, New York and in numerous film festivals including in Rotterdam, Busan, and Oberhausen. Most recently she concluded her tenures at Art Explora and Cite des Art, which occurred on the heels of another significant residency at the MAK Center for Art and Architecture. She is a founder and currently co-directs Polar Film Lab, a collective for analogue film practice located in Troms\u00f8, Norway and is a member of artist duo New Mineral Collective, recently commissioned for a new work by the First Toronto Biennial.<\/p>\n
THE MODERN FLAT
\nDainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius
\n92 min.
\nLithuania, 2023, documentary<\/p>\n
Artist Dainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius invites us into his living space where the line between the mundane and the creative is blurred. Home videos and contemporary documentary footage form the film\u2019s cohesive tapestry, with the artist\u2019s flat playing a central role. The flat reveals the everyday world of not just the artist but also his family. This microcosm shows the many ways how day-to-day activities \u2013 the ritual of removing the Christmas tree, parties, moving furniture, choosing which drawings will go on the wall, drinking tea \u2013 are transformed into performances. The private home space turns into a scene, and family members become actors. The mysterious story of the flat is unraveled in parallel with that of the artist\u2019s works.
\nTrailer:https:\/\/vimeo.com\/877142745<\/p>\n
Dainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius is a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists\u2019 Association. He represents the Lithuanian ‘Break Generation’, consisting of artists who contributed to the renewal of artistic expression after the restoration of Lithuanian independence. He creates installations, photographs, performances, further blurring the boundaries of genres and seeking new forms in contemporary art. Li\u0161kevi\u010dius\u2019 creative work is characterized by contextuality, irony, civic engagement, and social criticism. Responding to the topography of a specific place, he investigates people\u2019s behaviors and experiences, identity and cultural values, the collision of public and private spaces, and personal and collective memory. In 2015, Dainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius represented Lithuania at the 56th Venice Biennale, where he presented the project ‘Museum’. In 2021, he was awarded the Lithuanian National Culture and Art Prize.<\/p>\n
GUSTONIAI IN GUSTONIAI
\nDarius \u017di\u016bra
\n76 min.
\nLithuania, 2020, documentary<\/p>\n
Gustoniai is a village located in the northern part of Lithuania. This place also lends its name to a contemporary art project that commenced in 2001. Every three years, artist Darius Ziura shoots a one-minute video portrait of every villager that has agreed to participate in the project. The project period is getting longer and longer, reflecting the changes in the age of the people involved and the change in the village itself as a social structure, influenced by the socio-political development of the state. The project also captures the changing formats of filming and video reproduction, and the specific characteristics of the image at a particular time. In the summer of 2018, D. \u017di\u016bra organised a culture and art festival in the village of Gustoniai, during which the Gustoniai project was presented for the first time to the project participants themselves. The images filmed during the festival are complemented by footage from the Gustoniai project films, as well as footage from \u017diura’s personal archive, showing the artist’s “kitchen” – his relationships with the people involved in the project, his failures and emotional conflicts. All these layers intertwine to form a narrative that cannot be attributed to any particular documentary genre. (according to VDFF info)
\nTrailer: https:\/\/mubi.com\/en\/films\/gustoniai-in-gustoniai\/trailer<\/p>\n
Darius \u017di\u016bra studied painting at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and in 2017 he was awarded a Doctor of Arts degree from the Vilnius Academy of Arts. He lives and works in Vilnius. Darius \u017di\u016bra is a prominent face in Lithuanian contemporary art. His ongoing projects capture time and the new history of Lithuania through portraits of other people. Since 2001, the artist has been documenting the inhabitants of the village of Gustonys (Pasvalys district) every three years. He has made a full-length documentary film ‘Gustoniai in Gustoniai’ (2020). He has made a series of portraits of prostitutes, and has created works from wax found in cemeteries and melted coins found in fountains. In 2024, ‘Kitos knygos’ together with the Vilnius Academy of Arts Publishing House published his book ‘Diseris’. This is the artist’s creative autobiography, which reveals, through seemingly random events, the various layers of his own experiences and the state of society in the nineties and the new millennium. \u017di\u016bra has participated in many group exhibitions in Lithuania, including the national survey exhibitions ‘Lithuanian Art 1989-1999: Ten Years’, ‘Self-esteem. Lithuanian Art 01’, ‘Lithuanian Art 2000-2010: Ten Years’ at the Vilnius Contemporary Art Centre and the 10th Kaunas Biennial in 2015. His work has also been shown internationally, perhaps most notably in the 5th and 7th European Biennials Manifesta in San Sebastian (Spain) in 2004 and Bolzano (Italy) in 2008, and in the international exhibition ‘Institute of Temporary Futures’ at the M HKA Museum of Contemporary Art in Antwerp in 2017. Among his solo exhibitions, the most notable are those at the CAC: the performative installation ‘Another Space’ in 1998, ‘Portraits – Presentation of Photographic and Video Works’ in 2006 and ‘SWIM’ in 2014. It is also important to mention other solo exhibitions at the Antje Wachs Gallery in Berlin: ‘Collection’ in 2007 and ‘Selected Shots’ in 2010.<\/p>\n
Images:<\/p>\n
Darius \u017di\u016bra. ‘Gustoniai in Gustoniai’, film still.
\nEmilija \u0160karnulyt\u0117. ‘Burial’, film still.
\nDainius Li\u0161kevi\u010dius. ‘Modern Flat’, film still.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
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