In the context of Vitrum Balticum. Trap! festival, contemporary art exhibition New Stories represents the discourse of the present, but is also closely related to the topics of memory and past that are the focal points of the festival. Memory in this context is viewed as a relationship of different generations with the past, which is reflected on through the meanings of images, narratives and environmental effects until it becomes a supposed personal experience. According to philosopher F. De Brigard, “…remembering is a particular operation of a cognitive system that permits the flexible recombination of different components of encoded traces into representations of possible past events that might or might not have occurred, in the service of constructing mental simulations of possible future events.”.
New Stories exhibition’s collection was prepared on the basis of certain themes. It explores artists’ investigations of individuals’ personal narratives, social and cultural memory and also addresses the recreation of memory and focuses on fiction or ambiguous truth. The authors of the exhibition are looking at the nearest present as if from an imaginary future. Some of the authors concentrate on how an individual’s status is entrenched in the context of virtual and technocratic worldview and also question the issue of identity. Others explore the physical properties of light and glass as a material, while some introduce the idea of tangible intangibles or encode memories in a physical glass object. Yet others digress from subjective personal experience and open the wounds of collective consciousness. They explore the questions of power and create new world maps.
The artworks exhibited in the gallery meet in a closed environment and create interconnections between cultures, countries and beliefs. The viewers who have gotten themselves into memory traps are invited to establish a connection between past and present; to consider the changing meaning of history and past. History works here as traces of the past and artworks become a continuation of the past times. Artists search for, ask and reflect on the issue of truth representation as an expression of collective memory, and in doing so they try to understand their own past.
Artists: Verena Schatz (Austria), Fredrik Nielsen (Sweden), Palo Macho and Jana Hojstričova (Slovakia), Patrik Illo (Sovakia), Silvano Rubino (Italy), Jens Gussek (Germany), Riika Haapasaari (Finland), Saman Kalantari (Italy), Valmantas Gutauskas (Lithuania), Valda Verikaitė (Lithuania), Teresa Almeida (Portugal), Petra Thorgren (Sweden), Marzena Krzeminska (Poland), Simone Fezer (Germany), Anais Dunn (France).
Artists participating in the New Stories exhibition view the present from the perspective of the past. Past (space, time and event) is re-thought as the cause of the present and the consequence of the future. Using various means of contemporary art, artists featured in the exhibition speak of their individual experiences and observations. Some of them focus on establishing the status of an individual in the context of virtual, technocratic worldview, and question the identity problem. Others investigate the physical properties of light and glass; raise the idea of tangible intangibles or encode memories in a physical glass object. Yet others digress from subjective personal experience and open the wounds of collective consciousness; explore the questions of power using the images of computer aesthetics and create new world maps. As if seismographically capturing the pulsating movements of the earth’s depths artists urge to rethink the world’s socio-political conflicts and etc.
Curators of exhibition:
Maja Heuer, director of glass museum Glass factory, Sweden.
Julija Pociūtė, artist, Vitrum Balticum 2017 artistic director.
Meno parkas gallery
Rotuses sq. 27, Kaunas
2017 10 04 -2017 10 27
Photography: Vytautas Paplauskas