Kotryna Ūla Kiliulytė. Impossible Colonies, 2017, beeswax
Platform: 2017 showcases new work by artists Uist Corrigan, Rebecca Howard, Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte and Adam Quinn.
Multidisciplinary artist Kotryna Ula Kiliulyte’s work exists in the tense territories between fact and fiction; the personal and the political; memory and imagination. Often originating from her personal experience as a migrant Kiliulyte’s work orchestrates multiple narratives.
Created specifically for Platform: 2017, Impossible Colonies takes its starting point from the utopian project ‘Dausuva’ proposed in the 1920s by the Lithuanian geographer and diplomat Kazys Pakstas (and named after Dausos – the spirit world in Lithuanian mythology). In response to prevailing geopolitical tensions, Pakstas proposed moving the entire nation of Lithuania to an alternative location: in order that it might exist as a peaceful colony in purchased or leased land. Suggested locations included Belize, Madagascar, Quebec, the Sao Paulo region of Brazil, and the Bahamas.
Impossible Colonies incorporates a wide range of references, ranging from archival practices, notions of souvenirs as memory objects, to representations of landscape and water as liminal space. Combining elements of photography, printmaking and sculptural objects, the work explores alternative scenarios through a future viewed from the past. By taking a century old utopian project out of its geographical and political conditions and opening it up to the current global context, Kiliulyte invites us to imagine possible new directions.
28 July – 27 August
The Fire Station at Edinburgh College of Art
76-78 Lauriston Place,
Edinburgh, EH3 9DE
More information: https://edinburghartfestival.com/whats-on/detail/kotryna-ula-kiliulyte