The exhibition exploits the spatial situation of the Pamėnkalnio Gallery as an architectural fabric permeated with temporary spatial cues. These cues, in turn, form diverse interwoven narratives, reflecting Builder’s relationship to space. At the centre of the work is a video installation where different episodes unfold in a common narrative: certain community relations create contexts based on metaphors, blurring the boundary between public and private, alien and familiar environments, and highlighting space as a tool of power.
Builder’s internal structure is dictated by the system of spatial and conceptual relationships and references emerging within it, while the changing positions of the subject-object relationship continuously recreates possible scenarios of experience in the polyphonic space of the city.
ABOUT THE AUTHORS:
Dovydas ALČAUSKIS (b. 1989) is a Vilnius-based artist who graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts with an MA in Painting in 2014, and is currently studying for another BA in Architecture at the same academy. Refining the image to its primordial forms, the artist uses his practice to delve into the problematics of image construction: the main goal here becomes to recreate the visual code of a certain phenomenon through compositions of different images. Colour in Dovydas’s creative work has a constructive and symbolic function, leading to the emergence of a distinctive, personal visual poetic language. The reconsideration and synthesising of the process of image creation in the artist’s work seem to naturally pass into the realm of spatial design problems. Thus, architectural studies become a logical an inherent part of the artist’s creative strategy: the contexts of space, art and architectural history act as essential elements of his work, conceptually levelling the division between architecture and visual arts.
Eglė PETROŠIŪTĖ (b. 1991) is a Vilnius-based artist with an MA in Painting from the Vilnius Academy of Arts obtained in 2016. Eglė’s creative strategy is based on the study of the corporeal and social environmental phenomena. Employing various media (textile, video art and installation), she speaks through the reflection of her own body and aims to conceptually reveal its relationship with the environment. In this way, the artist expands the definition of corporeality, which in her work unfolds through the contexts of art history, phenomenology and literature. This approach also become a condition for the investigation of intimacy, while the problem of corporeality itself leads to the emergence of the communal aspect. Rooted in these connections, Eglė’s creative practice is driven by an interest in anthropological research and methods that analyse the position and behaviour of the human being within various social constructs.
Together, Eglė and Dovydas create the poetic figure of Builder, which highlights the often-unnoticed problems of the present time, space, and the human being who creates it.
Organiser: Pamėnkalnio Gallery.
Sponsors: Lithuanian Council for Culture, Lithuanian Artists’ Association.
Copy editing and translation by Alexandra Bondarev.
Design by Gailė Pranckūnaitė.
Audio engineering by Kipras Čėsna.
Special thanks to the VAA Department of Architecture, the VAA Department of Photography and Media Art, and all those who have contributed to the implementation of this project.
