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The Metamorphosis, 2026
Collage of paper, pigment print, and acrylic on canvas
Unsettling Interpretations Beyond the Theatrical Stage is a photographic installation based on Franz Kafka’s novella The Metamorphosis. It is not an illustration of the text and not a retelling of Gregor Samsa’s story. It transfers the central state of the novella – the experience of a person who has become a stranger in their own home – from the literary page into a real physical space. The project was shot in an abandoned apartment on Bokšto Street in the Old Town of Vilnius. The apartment had stood empty for many years: peeling walls, dirty windows, Soviet furniture, the smell of stopped time. I did not need to build a set – the space was already speaking the language of Kafka. On the final canvas we see the entire Samsa family, without Gregor. The masks are a separate part of the project. There is one important point: in my work, everyone wears a mask except Gregor. This may seem strange. In stories of transformation, the mask usually ends up on the one who has changed. I chose a different path: the real metamorphosis does not happen to Gregor – it happens to those who surround him. What we were building is a very quiet drama, in which the main thing is not the action but the absence of it. The exhibition form of the project consists of four suspended canvases, 3 × 2.4 metres each. They do not look like exhibition panels but like walls that have been left standing after the people are gone. The canvases are hung at a distance from one another, forming a narrow corridor that the viewer walks through. The corridor repeats the spatial logic of the original apartment. Alongside the installation, there is a small album – the quieter, more intimate form of the same work. The work exists between scenography, photography, and installation, without belonging fully to any of them. I am interested in moments when one medium begins to act by the rules of another – when photography works by the logic of cinema and theatre, when a wall starts to function as a page, when a corridor starts to function as time. I do not want to explain anxiety. I want to build the conditions in which the viewer can meet it on their own – or meet something else entirely. The work does not give a ready-made reading. It gives space for reflection. Exhibited as part of the graduation exhibition at the Vilnius Academy of Arts Library (VDA Library), Vilnius, 2026.
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