Ydilė, 2023

3-­channel moving image installation, 12’ video loop

Objects around me have always caught my eye. It was fundamental for me to explore the landscape of my hometown and how it has shaped me as an artist. I grew up in Kedainiai, in the heart of Lithuania. The town is known as an industrial district. Phosphogypsum terricones are distinctive features of this region. They are the byproducts of fertilizer production, which are accumulated and poured into the white mountains. It was never otherwise. Two forces collide in the work: the human and nature. They act as adversary energies, yet at the same time endow each other with the power needed to spread, unveiling the law of coexistence. The moving images reveal the layer of the incessant, mechanical human-driven terraforming of the planet and the adaptation of such (re)formed terrain to human needs. „Ydilė”, a play on words, is a romanticized toxic landscape that appears in the work and conveys the ambivalent meaning of a significant landscape. It is a portmanteau of the Lithuanian term idilė (idyll), which brings to mind a quiet carefree life tinged with nostalgia, and „ydingumas” (vice), a flaw or a hazard menacing the seemingly idyllic landscape.

Video