On 3 April 2025 at 7pm, an exhibition titled ‘The Unloved’ opens at Atletika gallery, presenting the debut collaborative body of work by artists Felicia Honkasalo (FI) and Sam Williams (UK). The exhibition continues until 17 May and will end with a screening night on 16 May, a film / programme selected by the artists.
‘A plant with narrative agency radically alters notions about sentience, mobility, reproduction, and representation— not the least by blurring distinctions between character and setting.’
In ‘The Unloved’, the figure of the ‘weed’ is animated through a combination of film, photography, collage, text and ephemera that sits somewhere in the cracks between museum herbarium, Gothic fantasy, childhood fable and amateur theatre.
According to Richard Mabey, Britain’s foremost nature writer, weeds – even many intrusive aliens – give something back. They green over the dereliction we have created. They move in to replace more sensitive plants that we have endangered. Their willingness to grow in the most hostile environments – a bombed city, a crack in a wall – means that they insinuate the idea of wild nature into places otherwise quite shorn of it. They are, in this sense, paradoxical. Although they follow and are dependent on human activities, their cussedness and refusal to play by our rules makes them subversive, and the very essence of wildness.
Living in times characterised as the end of the world, The Unloved is an exploration of identity, transformation, and the resilience of the overlooked, inviting audiences to see beauty in the tenacity of what is often dismissed or despised.
Felicia Honkasalo lives and works in Helsinki, Finland and has a Masters from the Department of Time-based Arts, University of the Arts, Helsinki, and a BA in Photography from University of the Arts, London UK. Her work has been shown in Finland and abroad in solo exhibitions, group exhibitions and at international film screenings. Her first monograph, Grey Cobalt, was published by Loose Joints in 2019 (UK). Her work explores the relationship between memory and history and the borderlines between life and death, human and animal. Through a critical and poetic approach she seeks to challenge established ways of thinking and encourage new ways of seeing the world around us. She often collaborates with other artists and scholars. Recent exhibitions include: Sinne Gallery, Helsinki, Finland (2024), Sema Nanji Museum of Contemporary Art, South-Korea (2023), Turku Art Museum, Finland (2022); Helsinki Biennial, Finland (2021), Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Latvia (2020).
Sam Williams is an artist with a practice that intertwines moving-image, collage, choreography, sound and writing. His ongoing research focuses on multispecies entanglements, ecological systems, bodies-as-worlds and folk mythologies and how they propose possibilities for present and future ways of non-human-centric living. Sam is based in London where he is a resident artist at Somerset House Studios. He has presented work at institutions including Chisenhale Gallery, Arnolfini, Baltic39, Siobhan Davies Dance, Somerset House, Tate Britain, Studio Voltaire and South Kiosk (UK), She Will (Norway), Kino Arsenal, Akademie der Kunst, Tanzhalle Weisenberg and B3 Biennale (Germany). He has been artist in residence at Rupert, Lithuania (2022), PRAKSIS, Oslo (2018) and in 2021 was selected as one of ten artists forming the Wysing Arts Centre Syllabus, a peer-led alternative education program.
Exhibition text – Juliet Jacques
Graphic Design – Monika Janulevičiūtė
Translation – Rosana Lukauskaitė
Technical manager – Neda Rimaitė
With thanks to Roma Auškalnytė, Rūta Radušytė, Jakub Dubaniewicz, Helen Hamilton, Somerset House Studios, The Rio Cinema, TIN Café and John Hunnex at the Natural History Museum, London.
Exhibition opening – Thursday 3 April 7–9 pm (part of ‘OPEN SODAS. Weeds’ event programme at cultural centre SODAS 2123).
Exhibition dates & times – 4 April–17 May 2025, Thu-Fri 4–7pm, Sat 1–5 pm.
Address – Atletika gallery, Vitebsko 21, Vilnius.
Free entry to the exhibition and events.
The exhibition is organised by the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association (LIAA). Activities of LIAA are financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality. The exhibition is supported by Nordic Culture Point and TAIKE
www.atletikaprojects.lt
