Medūza is pleased to present First Contact – a duo exhibition by artists Emilija Povilanskaitė and Laura Marija Balčiūnaitė.
What does contact look like between beings in different and non-contiguous milieus? Such contacts can disclose things about one another, but they can also change each of them irreversibly. The first contact can be both fateful and the last. It is a risky state of uncertainty in which one instantly reconsiders what one has been so far and negotiates one’s life going forward.
The idea for this exhibition originated in the artists’ reflections on the place of nature in contemporary techno-utopian imagery. The cyborg aspirations of Silicon Valley’s transhumanism and dreams of brain-machine interfaces seek to transform and re-centre the human being in a domesticated technological (neo)nature. In this techno-dream, the immediate relationship of the human body to the wild is displaced and devalued, even though it is in the latter that one can still find the trace of magical thinking based not only on exploitation but on kinship.
In creating the installation, the artists drew inspiration from the research of Maria Gimbutienė and Leo Lionni, who describe and imagine extinct cultures and life forms. In their work, the artists found a desire to form a broader conception of knowledge that goes beyond instrumental rational thinking and to articulate mental landscapes that are often overlooked and go beyond the limits of human imagination alone. In this way, the exhibition engages with and attempts to get to know alternative or no longer existing beings by communicating through portals, odours, recollections and histories. A portal is an energetically charged liminal space that exists in our mental and psychogeographical maps.
Laura Marija Balčiūnaitė’s artistic practice was born out of being a flâneuse: a wanderer, observing life and society. Laura works with the human body, from the cosmic and erotic to the natural and self-loving. Through her drawings, psycho-geographical maps and sound performances, she explores sensual energy, passion and the need for tenderness, and the magic that transcends the human body̨ and feelings. Laura’s work is informed by notions of health practice, sound, drawings and movement and the relationship between them, design and myth, and the aesthetics of fluidity from the perspectives of feminism and queer theory.
Emilija Povilanskaitė’s films and installations speculatively explore the complex relationship between human beings and contemporary technologies. In both her films and installations, which often use high-voltage electricity and smell as their medium, the artist questions the established scientific methodology and the reality it establishes, and creates speculative narratives that offer alternatives to them.
Words of gratitude
We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Alina Balčiūniene, Justa Bø, Algirdas Jakas, Gintara Jonaityte (Tellus Studio), Elena Laurinavičiūtė, Aleksandra Minenko and Ugne Vyliaudaite, who have contributed so much to the realisation of the exhibition.
The exhibition “First Contact” is on show at the art space Medūza until 11 May. It is part of the Lithuanian Artists’ Union’s Strategic Art Creators’ Organisation programme. The programme is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.”
Laura Marija Balčiūnaitė and Emilija Povilanskaitė
First contact
2024 04 12 – 2024 05 11
Medūza
Photography: Laurynas Skeigiela