MYKOLA RIDNYI “LOST BAGGAGE”

Principally funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture and The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania

Supported by Good Will Foundation, Vilnius City Municipality andthe Embassy of Israel in Lithuania

Project Partner and location: Courtyard of  Lithuanian Theater, Music and Cinema Museum, Vilniaus g. 41, Vilnius

We are grateful to Kaunas biennial and Kaunas Ninth Fort Museum for collaboration

MYKOLA RIDNYI

LOST BAGGAGE, 2019

Commissioned for the 12-th Kaunas biennial in 2019. The installation is inspired by the figure of Esther Lurie, an artist who was one of the Kaunas ghetto prisoners to survive to the Holocaust. Lurie made a series of drawings that show the characters, life conditions and streets of the Ghetto, which used to be populated by 30000 people. Some of her works have been lost, then she made new versions (replicas) after the war. According to evidences, she hid the drawings in ceramic pots and buried them in the ground to conceal them from the Nazis. Nevertheless, they were never found, as this story turned into a legend.

In his installation, Ridnyi secretes Lurie’s images into five human size ceramic pots. Ceramic is chosen as a material because of the long craft tradition that characterizes the city of Kaunas, together with its textile industry. Visitors can only spot the drawings by using small peepholes on the pots’ surfaces.

Gallery Patron

Renata and Rolandas Valiūnas

Gallery supported by Vilnius City Municipality, Lietuvos Rytas, Vilma Dagilienė, Romas Kinka, Art Fund, Ekskomisarų biuras