At the photo exhibition “reStart”: from glimpses of the war in Ukraine to personal photo stories | Culture

For the past few years, the “reStart” exhibition, which has been held as an international forum for contemporary photography, this year received as many as 143 applications from 26 countries and more than 2 thousand. works.

According to Vilma Samulionytė, the chairperson of the Lithuanian Union of Photographic Artists, who organizes the exhibition, from 2020 curated “reStart” has never received such a number of potential participants.

“The origins of the exhibition, which is being held in Vilnius for the third time, are the “Debut” competition previously organized by the Lithuanian Union of Photographic Artists. True, “reStart”, in contrast to “Debut”, includes not only beginning artists. The authors participating here annually symbolically diagnose the trends of photography as a means and way of expression, as well as today’s socio-cultural and political processes. I am glad that this year we received a record number of candidates – this shows that the rather fresh project is attracting more and more interest from artists”, says V.Samulionytė.

Ilona Baniusevič. Graces

In the initial stage, works are submitted through an open call, in the later stage the exhibition acquires features of a curatorial project every year – selected authors adapt their ideas for the exhibition.

This year, the works included in “reStart” were selected and evaluated by a commission made up of four photography professionals – Aurelija Maknytė, Vilma Samulionytė, Gytis Skudžinskas and Arturo Valiaugas.

It is also important that the three authors of the group exhibition in 2025 will have the opportunity to organize their personal exhibitions in Vilnius. Also, together with the exhibition, the Lithuanian Union of Photo Artists will present the third “reStart” catalog with the works of the authors.

Photo by Victoria Sorochuk.

The following eleven were selected for the exhibition from around 150 artists: Ilona Baniusevič (Lithuania), Amin Yousefi (Iran / United Kingdom), Alice Jankovic (Italy), Gediminas Kuncaitis (Lithuania), Ieva Maslinskaitė (Lithuania / Holland), Emma Godfrey Pigott (UK/Switzerland), Paula Punkstina (Latvia/Netherlands), Viktoria Sorochuk (Ukraine/Poland), Gökhan Tanrıöver (Turkey), Anya Tsaruk (Ukraine/Germany) and Julia Wimmerlin (Ukraine/Switzerland).

Depicting the relationship with the catastrophe

This year’s “reStart” exhibition features three different projects by Ukrainian artists related to the ongoing war in their native country. These are personal attempts to look at the war started by Russia, the everyday life of people in its background, various social phenomena or even language.

Anya Tsaruk, a photographer of Ukrainian origin living in Berlin, will present the project “I hope your family is safe” at the exhibition, which aims to reveal the difficulties of life in today’s Ukraine and its people: the coexistence of hope and pain, officers and civilians, life and death, destruction and creativity.

The debuting artist from Ukraine, Victoria Sorochuk, focuses on the old TV screen and the reflections born on it in her series “News”. According to her, this is like an allusion to the insignificance of real knowledge, where the simplest things can turn into dirty sensations.

Photo by Paula Punkstiniņš.

With the series “Stolen Language”, photographer Julia Wimmerlin, who was born in Ukraine and currently lives in Switzerland, aims to analyze the complex interplay of language, identity and historical manipulations in the context of the war in Ukraine, while at the same time examining her identity crisis as a Russian-speaking Ukrainian against the background of the conflict.

Connection with nature

In the “reStart” exhibition, there will be no shortage of fresh looks at the human relationship with nature, climate change, connection with the landscape or anthropocentric thinking.

Italian artist and photographer Alice Jankovic will present the series “Price” at the exhibition, in which she looks at gardens and parks. According to the artist, only by rediscovering a deep connection and communion with nature will we create spaces that can free us from the desolation of faceless landscapes.

With the project The Last Snowball, visual artist Emma Godfrey Pigott will use the joyful image of the snowball to reflect on the impact of climate change on the environment of the Swiss Alps where she lives.

Interdisciplinary art creator from Lithuania Ieva Maslinskaitė, currently working in Vilnius and the Netherlands, in the project “Doll: learning photography without being human” studies the living conditions of bacteria, fungi and plants and seeks to re-understand the environment, changing the anthropocentric point of view to an ecocentric one.

Photo by Gokhan Tanriover.

Intimate views of the world

The third reStart exhibition will also feature numerous visual stories based on personal experiences, family history or even exploring the boundaries of photography.

Visual artist Amin Yousefi from Iran will bring to light more than 40 years in his project “Eyes widen when searching for the truth”. vintage photos from the Iranian Revolution, highlighting individuals who looked out of the crowd into the camera lens at an important moment in history.

Photographer, video artist Ilona Baniuševič will open the doors of her grandparents’ apartment, where she lived for a while, with the “Old apartment” project. According to her, photography became part of the process of taming the apartment.

Turkish-born British photographer Gökhan Tanrıöver returns to the small Aegean village where his three grandparents came from to create a new archive of family images with the photo series “A Flower Under the Fig Tree Will Bloom”.

Lithuanian photographer Gediminas Kuncaitis uses an old Agfa camera in the project “FotoŠokis” and embarks on a playful dance with analog photography, exploring the limits of the creation of shots.

Finally, the representative of visual arts from Latvia looks at her family garden, complex Latvian identity and connection with the land in the project “Soil” and asks if the soil can reveal her identity?

All these works already from August 21. until September 21 you will be able to see it in Vilnius “Prospekto” gallery, Gediminos ave. 43.