Influencers promoting personal development have become a source of inspiration for artist Gertrúda Gilytė | Culture

In the exhibition “Down the rabbit hole” of the MO museum, visitors meet G. Gilytė’s installation “I love you, Gertruda” – brightly colored scarves with messages of self-love, which the artist knits to explore how positive psychology, spiritual routines and other social media trends affect us and our environment . The artist looks at these phenomena from a critical perspective and does not lack irony, noting that such practices have both positive and dangerous effects.

– Gertrude, one of your projects is called “Successful Art Project”. What is success for you? How do you measure it in your personal and creative life and how do you manage to navigate the expectations that, it’s no secret, are constantly burdened by the depiction of life on social networks?

– Paradoxically, although the project was called “Successful Art Project”, after its implementation I decided not to use the words “success” and “success” in my speech at all. The main reason was that in popular discourse they are usually synonymous with professional achievements, popularity or financial status. I try not to measure success anymore, because until now trying to achieve it caused me a lot of anxiety, I compared myself with others – usually only from the negative side.

Now I try to evaluate achievements or everyday life according to how meaningful my activities seem to me, whether I feel calm, motivated, and where I would like to be. Likewise with social media. I decide whether the project is valuable based on how much it seems to me, whether I would like it if I saw this or a similar work from abroad. Meaningful comments from the audience also help with this. Of course, a large number of followers would create more opportunities, but also more of my own perfectionism.

– How did the idea of ​​combining personal development practices with art come about?

– I became interested in this around 2017, when I started to notice a huge increase in the amount of personal development content on social media. I was particularly attracted to the fact that there was a lot of performativity in it – especially in the content related to yoga, meditation, self-help.

Personal archive photo/Gertrūda Gilytė

Publicizing these practices often acts as a means of building social capital and is characterized by the desire to create a curated, perfect self-image that is so characteristic of social networks. Yoga, sports, various spiritual practices have become an endlessly aestheticized attribute of social media, starting with clothes and ending with sharing the distances run. Then I had the idea to try one of the methods that intrigued me at the time – “law of attraction”.

– What specific personal development influencers which aspects of culture and the spirituality that circulates in it do you find most troubling and which are valuable?

– I think that, as in every field, everything should be in moderation. Even valuable aspects can cause a lot of harm if overdosed. Among the disturbing ones I would classify spiritual teachers, coach and similar individuals who claim to be able to help with highly sensitive psychological issues without having any qualifications to do so and without considering the consequences this may cause. Various types of wellness seem to be dangerous as well. wellness) trends that promise to solve all health problems, accompanied by an endless amount of new products of questionable benefits.

Among the valuable aspects, of course, the increase of knowledge about mental health and the normalization of vulnerability are prominent. When people, especially famous people, share their problems publicly, it makes it easier for others to feel less alone, which I think is a huge benefit of social media in the last decade.

– You also use social media a lot in your work. How do you see their role in contemporary art and their impact on audience engagement? Is it important for today’s artist to be active on social media, creating with the idea that his/her work will often be viewed through a camera phone?

– I don’t think that using social media is universal or necessary, but it really surprises me how few conceptual works specific to these platforms are created. As an excellent tool for this purpose, I would single out the TikTok platform, which has a very specific aesthetic and provides an opportunity to reach a gigantic audience, especially one that does not belong to the art field.

Personal archive photo/Gertrūda Gilytė

I’d like to see more social media-specific pieces like mine (laughs). There’s very little conceptual art or continuous performance created specifically for TikTok, but I think there’s a lot of value in doing it – especially when so many people spend so much time on social media.

– How do audience feedback on social networks and/or exhibitions affect your approach to your work and its themes?

– A pleasantly surprising reaction, which I did not expect at all – I receive a lot of comments that my work has a kind of healing effect and helps people feel better. I think publicizing art on social networks and the fact that I speak for myself in my content contributes to this. In this way, the works become much more recognizable to people, and a connection is established with them.

Somewhat paradoxically, although my projects arose from a critique of motivational content, for some my content is also intrinsically motivational. So far, I haven’t received any negative comments, and positive ones are always the biggest motivation – they are especially sensitive and personal. This creates a kind of circle of motivation.

– Are you involved in monitoring social media influencers yourself? Why?

– Yes, I follow a lot of them. First of all – because it works like a very interesting anthropological study, perfectly reflecting the trends of society, but at the same time – my guilty pleasure (lit. a favorite thing that I’m not comfortable admitting).

– How do you manage to maintain a balance between authenticity and performativity, criticism and support in your work? To what extent is this boundary clear and meaningful to you, or maybe just erased?

– I try to use the personal development methods that I use in my work as sincerely as possible. Of course, this does not always work, because I often find it difficult to believe their possible effects myself. Still, I try to use them as an art tool and turn my personal development into a work of art, so I think it’s important to do it honestly. It is very easy to cynically criticize these phenomena, but to understand why so many people use such methods these days is quite another.

– How has long-term, albeit performative, engagement in spiritual practices affected your own emotional health?

– Only positive! I didn’t expect that at all. If I didn’t have to use these practices on a daily basis for the idea of ​​the piece, I certainly wouldn’t be doing them as consistently. Interestingly, although I was quite skeptical about these practices, for example, after I started knitting a lot, I saw for myself its calming effect. Of course, it only helps that you can’t surf TikTok while knitting. (laughing) These practices aren’t a cure-all, but developing long-term calming habits can be helpful.

– You have mentioned that the creative process is more important than the final result. How do you manage to stay focused on the process when we live in what seems to be a very results-oriented society?

– It probably works because I really like those projects and they seem meaningful. Of course, the fact that I spend so much time every day doing very unusual activities also contributes – it becomes a habit that you don’t want to abandon after more than two years of daily work. I also have no doubt that the results will come – just maybe not as soon as I originally hoped.

– What topics in your work are most interesting to you at the moment and where do you want to move in the future? And finally, is your half-seriously, half-ironic public goal of selling all “I love you, Gertrude” scarves as art objects close to being realized?

– I think my next subject will be poetry. It is one of the most intensive and difficult to monetize art forms, which has recently become especially popular and, in my opinion, is also leaning into the field of personal development, wellness trends. I have never written or read poetry, but I am thinking about another ongoing performance based on this genre in the context of personal development.

In the meantime, the goal of selling all the scarves is still a long way off, but the longer that doesn’t happen, the more scarves I’ll lose, and the longer I’ll reduce anxiety, raise my dopamine and serotonin levels, and create a super-large installation. I tried to code both projects with the so-called “success in failing”.