Exhibition / installation
2018
(AV17) Gallery. Collection of Lewben Art Foundation
A composition (as a single work or installation) consists of several sculptural objects that create a certain associative relationship, mood, and atmosphere. I was inspired by the relationship between nature and civilisation, the industrial legacy (disused railways, old factories, former military sites, and various related infrastructures), and, more specifically, the processes of decay and change that take place in such sites.
It is interesting to see how nature is slowly taking over what man built not so long ago. On the one hand, the image may seem rather post-apocalyptic – shrub-covered hulks of masonry and reinforced concrete, crumbling like monuments to the reckless ambitions of the past – but this is only one perspective. If you can detach yourself from the historical context and look at it with a certain childlike curiosity, it’s easy to see how vibrant and dynamic nature is in such places, with tree branches crushing reinforced concrete, blocks of collapsing buildings hanging from thin reinforcement rods as if levitating in mid-air, mosses and grasses even growing on the oil-soaked asphalt, and iron turning to ore again. The conclusion is that nature is doing just fine, thriving in spite of all the unfavourable man-made conditions. It makes you think about the ambitions of today, the prospects for the future, the transience of material things and the constant change.
The composition, or rather a situation (mise-en-scène) created from sculptural objects, is like a vision of a hypothetical future, inspired by the relationship between civilisation and nature. At the same time, it is a look through a surreal or futuristic prism. As in the “zone” described by the brothers Arkady and Boris Strugatsky (in the novel Roadside Picnic), I want the viewer to have the feeling that something is “not right” and that something could happen at any moment. Levitation, tension, a sense of change, a favourable time for something to happen that is difficult to define and can only be sensed.
The work was shown in 2018 at the (AV17) gallery in the exhibition “Levitation”. The work was created with the support of an individual grant from the Lithuanian Council for Culture for art creators. A part of an installation has been acquired by the non-governmental organisation Lewben Art Foundation.
