About the eternal desire to reach the sun – Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė and Lidija Kononenko exhibition “Worlds” | Culture

“Posaulės” is a collaborative project between Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė and Lidija Kononenko, artists born in Lithuania, living and working in the United Kingdom, and their first exhibition presented together.

The title of the exhibition “Worlds” can be interpreted in different ways, its meaning is revealed through the artists’ installations and video works. Earths is a term used to describe an optical phenomenon – the reflection of the sun below the horizon caused by atmospheric conditions. Such a false sun – a reflection in the clouds – can sometimes be seen from an airplane.

The phenomenon of the false sun, according to the philosopher Michel Serres, can also be associated with “fire”, “signal” economies. In The Parasite (1982) he describes it as the desire to create an imitation of the sun on Earth, the most obvious reflection of capitalism. Serres interprets the phenomenon of fake suns as potential reservoirs – oil, gas, coal resources, dammed rivers, databases and satellites put into orbit, ensuring an uninterrupted flow of information and capital.

“It is important not only to poetically reflect on this natural phenomenon, which is associated with a simple human desire to touch the sun, but also to talk regarding it as subconsciously stimulating capital development and resource extraction processes outside the Earth’s borders,” says Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė. The artist’s works intertwine the narratives of expansionism and escape from the exhausted Earth, techno-utopian ideas of multiplanetary existence, and at the same time explore the tangible and visible evidence of the layering of time on Earth.

Lidija Kononenko is looking for different ways of seeing with her works. It dismantles and layers inseparable elements of our everyday life – screens, disconnects them from electricity and turns them into sculptural objects visible only in daylight. The solar modules installed at the entrances of the gallery transmit to them a jerking signal, dependent only on sunlight, which is transformed into fragments of texts that speak regarding memory, physical sensations, embodied feelings, which the viewer is invited to read.

In the Lithuanian language, “Subsuns” (“Worlds”) also sounds like “many worlds” – thus the name of the exhibition acquires another purpose – it becomes an invitation to imagine alternative ways of coexistence with the world.

Lidija Kononenko (born in Lithuania) is a visual artist living in London. Combining sculpture, video art, texts and sound in her work, she explores research methodologies related to human existence. Kononenko’s works interweave the personal with an analytical approach, exploring various ways of understanding the body and embodiment, from the visual expression of physical states such as exercise or falling asleep, to emotions such as falling in love. Viewing itself through the prism of science as a place to be mapped and maintained, she considers the expansion of biomedicine into private spheres. Kononenko graduated from the Royal Academy of Arts in London and has exhibited at Somers Gallery in London (solo exhibition), Museum of Photography in Yekaterinburg (solo exhibition), Nunnery Gallery in London, Ya Gallery in Kyiv, The Photographers’ Gallery in London and Finnish Photography museum in Helsinki. Video art works shown at Plaza Plaza Cinema (online), ECNP Congress (online), Tenferflix in London, Cité Internationale des Arts in Paris; Ciné 13 Théâtre in Paris and The Courtyard in London. The artist has been awarded the Art of Neuroscience Award (Netherlands), as well as the Peter Rippon Travel and E. Vincent Harris Awards at the Royal Academy of Arts, London.

Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė (born in Lithuania) – an artist and researcher who explores alienation and the unknown in the practice of photography and video art. In general, her practice is defined by encounters with strangeness. eerie), which is understood both as a loss of a comfort zone – self, humanity, place of residence or environment – ​​and as an alertness to the feeling of an as-yet-unidentified being. Since 2014 the artist’s works have been exhibited in personal and group exhibitions in the United Kingdom (The Photographers’ Gallery; 253 Hoxton), Lithuania (Kaunas photography gallery, MO museum, Prospect gallery, Sodų 4 project space, Vartai gallery, Vilnius picture gallery , Pranas Domšaitis Gallery), Norway (“Fotogralleriet”), Taiwan (National Center of Photography and Painting, National Taiwan Art Museum), South Korea (Museum of Photography), China (“Inside-Out Art Museum”). in 2018 the artist commissioned a video installation for Boiler Room x Tinder events in Bristol, Glasgow and London. She holds a PhD in Film and Screen Studies from the University of Cambridge.

The exhibition is organized by the Lithuanian Union of Interdisciplinary Art Creators (LTMKS). The activities of LTMKS are financed by the Lithuanian Council of Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.