The Pool, 2025

Glass, mirror, metal constructions, LED

In my artistic research THE POOL, I examine the “moment of change” – the instant when a person’s thinking is transformed. I define this instant as a response to shifting cognition that unfolds through a variety of material and immaterial experiences. At the centre of the research stands the pool. This dual object – a confined yet transformation-friendly space – invites the viewer to reconsider their relationship with physical, psychological and social boundaries, with freedom, and with choice. By probing themes of colour interpretation, freedom, choice, limits and change, I provoke the viewer to undergo an inner shift and feel that moment of transformation. Why a pool? The pool is a metaphor for restriction: a small vessel with edges, walls, a single entrance and a single exit. Inside it we are enclosed and cut off from the surrounding world. I harness precisely these limits to create new conditions for reflection, sensation, imagination and the moment of change. Using the outdoor pool structures at the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA) practice base in Mizarai and the Soviet-era tiles found in the VAA Stained-Glass Studios (Jasinskio St., Vilnius), I constructed a new object – a new pool. It urges the viewer to inspect the work more closely and to realise that the entire piece is a utopia; the use of glass emphasises fragility and impermanence. The confining pool and Soviet tiles merge into a shared symbol of enclosure. By combining elements from these two locations I enact a “transfiguration of place”. In the research, the new pool becomes a platform for expressing change, embodying both permanence and flux as an inseparable whole. Visually, the pool functions as an interpretation of the moment of change. I hope this artistic research enables the viewer to experience that transformative instant. The project is driven by a personal creative process in which shifting themes and constant reflection form the methodological core. Although I explored many seemingly unrelated topics – from colour theory, freedom and choice to limits and mutability – each carried its own tasks, aims and even methods. I rely on thematic yet intuitive structuring that organically weaves together images, texts and experiences. My sources do more than support the study; they reorder its logic – much like Aby Warburg’s method – and become engines for new 5 meaning. Despite the fluidity of themes and references, I kept circling back to the (rhetorical) question “How free or unfree are we?” and to the pivotal axis: the moment of change. The visual practice comprises water-colours, artistic journals, my mother’s kindergarten drawings, and several glass-and-light installations: Freedom through Colour, Pool Floor, and the large-scale light installation THE POOL, which simulates a pool. Each piece embodies a different phase of the research. The key is not only their form but their impact: how colour, light and the delicacy of glass can redirect the viewer’s gaze – and, perhaps, their thinking. The audience becomes active; the interactive nature of the installations invites them not merely to look but to reflect, pausing time at the critical instant, testing their own limits and their effects. Thus, the installation is not a finished object but an open process. Ultimately, the research remains open-ended. THE POOL is not a closed system but an ongoing work that reflects both the viewer and myself. Every participant can experience a personal moment of change – maybe small, yet significant. I believe art, through visual impulses, can trigger not only aesthetic but also inner transformation. My aim was to build a space where seeing becomes that transformative instant. Key words: moment of change, THE POOL, feedback loop, freedom, sensation, choice, boundaries, colour, glass