Exhibitions
Working at the intersection of music, poetry, video, and performance, Lithuanian artist Eglė Budvytytė explores the power of collectivity, vulnerability, and permeability between bodies and the environments they inhabit. In the film Songs from the Compost: mutating bodies, imploding stars (2020) she examines human hubris toward animals, plants, bacteria, and fungi. Shot in the lichen forest and sand dunes of the Curonian Spit in Lithuania, this video depicts shape shifting bodies moving among each other in close proximity. The work is accompanied by a mesmerising musical composition and is narrated by the artist, who draws from biologist Lynn Margulis’ theory of endosymbiosis – which refers to the interaction and cooperation of composite organisms – as well as from speculative science fiction author Octavia E. Butler – who disrupts anthropocentric hierarchy through tropes of hybridity and symbiosis. Songs from the Compost is a hypnotic exploration of bodies’ interdependency, disintegration, and decay, demonstrating the necessity of intertwined networks between human and non-human beings for nurturing interspecies relationships.
While walking along kala for the first time, we can easily fall into a dazed state of saturated senses, coming from signs to this museum or that restaurant, through changing spots of shadow and sunlight on stone textures, to capers growing nonchalantly from the cracks in walls. And there, among the layers of architecture and life, every now and then – buža. Buže, on some islands known as “ears of windows” or probužoni kamik (perforated stone) in the dialect of Hvar, are stone protrusions with a circular hole in the middle, usually located at the height of two thirds of the window frame. It is assumed, because buže mostly live in pairs, that a beam was passed through them, but their function is the subject of various theories: that they were used for drying clothes, or colored Venetian cloths, animal skins and furs, hanging wet and damp sheets, as protection from the sun and “air conditioning” of the living spaces, as well as for placing festive flags, tapestries and cloths with family coats of arms during important celebrations. What is certain is the multitude of personal truths and stories of the people to whom they belong to and who live with them every day. It is precisely this openness in interpretation that gives a wide space for play. With this site-specific installation in the kala of Jelsa, Željko Beljan brings buže to life, following their historic connections with textile, with a simple gesture “reminding” visitors of their existence and inviting further intertwined interpretations.
Nature is Not Longer destiny is a double video experimental piece, to be screened simultaneously, conceived during a pre-pandemic dance residency in Portugal. The director Jose Spínola induced the characters in a kind of hypnosis to interpret spontaneity – without a previous notion of the script – the concepts dictated as their opposite gender; women as men and men as women. The characters were free to express these concepts at will.
In this way, the director tries to unmask the gender indoctrinations that society has taught us to play – the ones responsible for creating a void between the genders, which ended up in the extreme sexual polarization that we suffer today. The liberation of men and women from these roles is in process – music and dance allow us to make an integration of both feminine and masculine hemispheres in ourselves, free from conceptual interpretations, time or space.
Let's keep it Gezellig
Marieke Leene (NL)
Video
Marieke Leene is a multidisciplinary artist based in the Netherlands. Leene developed a background in digital art and cultural events throughout her practice as an independent artist. She delves into the interactions between the ‘real world’ and the digital world.
She is currently pursuing a bachelor’s degree in digital arts. With interests ranging from computer made tableware to space waste, her work approaches the themes in a simple, poetic and humorous manner. Driven by concept, not medium, she has turned a cow into a 3D printer, started a fighter jet company to make the sun stand still and let an AI assess paintings based on their gezelligheid…
Many of Leene’s works concern habits, and the illusion of intrinsic behavior. How are things represented in the brain and how are they in reality? How does the author see it, how does the rest of the world see it and how does a computer see it?
Norm
Dejan Krstić (RS)
Site-specific installation / exhibition