In the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association project space “Malonioji 6” the new artworks of Kristina In\u010di\u016brait\u0117 will be presented: films and objects inspired by her research trip to China.<\/p>\n
Opening: 4 November 2015, 6 pm
\nThe exhibition on display: 06-08 November, 2015, from 3 to 6 pm<\/p>\n
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What lurks in the shadows? Chinese crickets that embody different shapes in the newest art project by Kristina In\u010di\u016brait\u0117. They migrate in the moving images and objects. By chirping loudly, they cure wounded souls, although they balance between life and death: the songs of male crickets attract female crickets and parasitic flies (Ormia ochracea) simultaneously. So sexual and natural selection appear to have opposing effects on the evolution of male chirping behavior in this species.<\/p>\n
There is also an \u201cindustrial selection\u201d of crickets. In China people have appreciated crickets since ancient times; they catch them in fields, sort them, breed them, also enjoying their chirping or even organize cricket fighting. In Chinese markets it\u2019s possible to find a huge number of crickets. They chirp in various baskets, gourds, and cases and their sound could be associated with noisy construction in China.<\/p>\n
Because of increasing economic growth in China, construction is widespread there \u2013 new cities and extensions of existing ones are appearing on China\u2019s horizon. However, rapidly growing housing developments are not promising a better and more comfortable life as quickly as expected. In China the phenomenon of ghost cities has arisen. It happens mostly in locations where expensive apartments have been offered for sale without infrastructure development. Usually such luxury apartments can be found in thematic residential districts that imitate European or American architecture: houses in Italian, English, French or Austrian style or Manhattan skyscrapers that attract the locals with Western lifestyle rather than with local urban identity.<\/p>\n
In 2015 Kristina In\u010di\u016brait\u0117 had a research trip to China and filmed one such thematic real estate object \u2013 the housing development of Tianducheng, a smaller scale replica of Paris with an Eiffel Tower that was built in 2007 on the outskirts of Hangzhou, a few hundred kilometers from Shanghai. However, it is not a luxurious Parisian paradise; scantily inhabited and unused commercial premises on ground floors illustrate inactive urban life. What would happen if the copy of Paris changed place with the original, or the copy surpassed the original? The plagiarism postulating world of shanzhai occupies a bigger part of a horizon where objects are smaller and their shadows are bigger. Probably it\u2019s possible to deconstruct the structure of representation, where the object corresponds to its copy. In other words, object repetition brings the deviation, some kind of perversion, and for this reason a copy not only becomes distant from its object but perhaps eliminates the principle of representation itself.<\/p>\n
The ghost-crickets come out from the shadow kingdom of simulacra and become soul \u201chealers\u201d \u2013 they awake sleepy sensations or even offer an alternative wild and unexpected world for people who wish to run away from the restrictions of social stratification, commercialization and stereotypes.<\/p>\n
In the projects space of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association the new artworks of Kristina In\u010di\u016brait\u0117 will be presented: a few films and objects inspired by her research trip to China.<\/p>\n
Organizer: Kristinos In\u010di\u016brait\u0117s studija
\nProject coordinator: Diana Dmitrijeva
\nSupported by: the Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania, and the Lithuanian Council for Culture
\nMany thanks: Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association, and the Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius
\nLina Bartusevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, Irmantas Bortnikas, Inga Dargu\u017eyt\u0117, Diana Dmitrijeva, Ieva Driukien\u0117, Lin Kan, Rasa Kavaliauskait\u0117, Violeta Lau\u017eonyt\u0117, Rita Markulien\u0117, Mindaugas Masaitis, Vytautas Michelkevi\u010dius, Darius Norkus, Goda Marija Norkut\u0117, Au\u0161ra Simanavi\u010di\u016bt\u0117, Guowei Sun, Vilma \u0160niuk\u0161tait\u0117, Lingzhen Wang, and others.<\/p>\n