The exhibition Reframing Wales’ Stories by Arturas Valiauga will be opened at 5:30 pm, January 15 (Tuesday), 2019 at Prospekto Gallery (Gedimino ave. 43, Vilnius).
Every story has an end. However, the ending of one story means the beginning of a new one, where the perspective of the narrator or the rules of the narrative will erase “meaningless” details and ignore all the circumstances that might belittle the story itself. A British saying goes “ignorance is bliss”. But the most intriguing elements are actually the daily peculiarities that allow the spectator to fully experience subjective and personal stories.
The palace outlives the people who have built it. The riches within it become silent witnesses of social identity and national history.
In these days of globalising Europe, the palace was a symbol of political and economic power, but it has lost its initial function that used to separate own from alien, private from public.
Wealth that was accumulated with the help of slavery and successful trading while expanding the industries in colonies, along with titles, have allowed many noblemen to control a whole lot of real estate, at the same time gathering culture and art within it. For centuries, these were closed centres of elite culture.
The modern constitutional monarchy of today turned the palace into a financial burden for its owners. Manors and castles – much like nations and the identities of contemporary civil societies – have become nationally trusted locations after being made public. Locations that turn distant or private stories into traits of national authenticity or expressions of a glorious past and personal dignity.
The project touches on not only the dialogue (or conflict) of public and private spaces, but also on the historical identity of Wales and its people, on writing such narrative, redesigning it, and interpreting it.
This subject is relevant to all of Europe, not just Wales with its manors and castles. Unfortunately, Lithuania has lost many objects like that due to a plethora of historical reasons, so the mentioned subject becomes quite painful when we talk about it here. In Wales, you can literally touch the stories, while for the most part one can only read about them in Lithuania.
“Prospekto” Gallery (Gedimino Ave 43, Vilnius)
Arturas Valiauga was born in Vilnius, in 1967. He got his degree as a bachelor of photo technologies from the Vilnius College of Technologies and Design, and finished MA studies of photography and media at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Known as a professional photographer in advertising, he has been part of art exhibitions and projects since 1993, for instance, a project “Darbas” [“Work”] (2005–2006) by the International Photography Research Network, the fourth ARS BALTICA Triennial of Photographic Art (2008), an EU-Japan Fest project “European Eyes on Japan” No. 11 (2009), etc. Subjects of social identity and time dominate among the works of Arturas Valiauga.
