Opening: Friday 14 February at 6pm
Curators: Neringa Bumblienė, Julija Fomina, Virginija Januškevičiūtė, Ūla Tornau and Asta Vaičiulytė
Participants: Aidas Bareikis, Khairani Barokka, Tiago Borges, Polly Brown, Marco Bruzzone, Vitalij Červiakov, Ian Damerell, Viktorija Damerell and Ona Juciūtė, Povilas Dirgėla, Sholto Dobie and Dovilė Šimonytė, Daniel Eatock, Greta Eimulytė, Annabel Elgar, Marta Frėjutė, Vytautas Gečas, Arūnas Gudaitis, Lizzie Homersham (Book Works), Ellie Hunter and Anastasia Sosunova, Milda Januševičiūtė and Ignė Narbutaitė, Karolina Jašinskaitė, Patricija Jurkšaitytė, Anastasia Kolas, Laima Kreivytė, Liucija Kvašytė, Dainius Liškevičius, Listening Eyes (Sheryl Cheung, Duto Hardono, Chi-Wei Lin, curated by Esther Lu), Marcos Lutyens, Marianna Maruyama, Matter in Flux, Gizela Mickiewicz, Andrej Polukord, Mark Prendergast, Eglė Ridikaitė, Maria Saivosalmi and Vytautas Puidokas, Self Luminous Society, Matthew Shannon, Vitalij Strigunkov, Andrius Svilys, Ieva Tarejeva, T.E.C. (Alex Kelvy, Zoé Renié Harris, Aapo Nikkanen), Trafik, Andrej Vasilenko, Mindaugas Vegys, Simona Žemaitytė, Tomas Židonis
Architect: Povilas Marozas (Studio SpaceTime)
Design: Vytautas Volbekas
Resident writers: Valentinas Klimašauskas and Post Brothers
Last autumn, the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius announced an open call to participate in a group exhibition. The open call presented an opportunity to reflect upon the needs of the art field along with its community, and to explore new ways of working together. “We would like to make an experiment – to invite anyone and everyone to propose ideas, projects, events and processes,” the curators wrote in the invitation; anything that “seems important, interesting to share or to experience with others.”
More than 200 people from various countries responded to the invitation, among them not just professional artists; a small infinity which for the last couple of months have been testing the limits of the CAC. We are very grateful for such an overwhelming response; collectively, the proposals contributed a diverse range of ideas, projects and points of view and each was considered, discussed and thus in some way accepted. Some of the proposals will be implemented and presented in the future or otherwise woven into the fabric of the CAC’s future activities. Meanwhile, several dozen artists, curators and collectives will feature in the exhibition ‘Head With Many Thoughts’.
The exhibition is a polyvocal reflection on time, endings, beginnings, transition and change. It offers no single vision for the future – neither hopeful nor threatening – nor one direction of movement: the present time is marked by a range of simultaneous trajectories and multiple choices. Knowing what exactly our actions will change is not always possible; nevertheless, it is important and no less interesting to look out for what is unfolding in front of us, and to act. If the exhibition does not lie, it’s the gentle attentiveness, togetherness and care that help us face the uncertainty; and one becomes the necessary “glue” by becoming support, springboard and adventure for oneself and for others.
The original invitation posed the question “Are We Closing?” as its headline, and the exhibition was intended as one of the last projects presented at the CAC prior to a major renovation. The prospect of a hiatus became a pretext for self-reflection and an opening up of the institution, and the exhibition also carries a sense of leaping into the unknown. However, due to an unexpected change in the building’s renovation plan, repairs have been postponed and the CAC will continue to operate in its usual spaces for at least another year. But while the anticipated changes have been delayed, thoughts are picking up speed.
Programme of the opening weekend:
~Friday~
18:00 Opening of the exhibition
18:15 Andrej Polukord performance “Happy End“, Sculpture yard
19:00 Self Luminous Society performance “Ballyhoo – Introduction to Self Luminous Society”, South hall
19:30 Marianna Maruyama performance “Permissions, a.k.a. Loving with Both Hands”, Cinema hall
20:00 Self Luminous Society performance „Nappezoid“, South hall
20:30 an opening party at the CAC café
~Saturday~
15:00 Self Luminous Society performance “Ballyhoo – Introduction to Self Luminous Society”, South hall
16:00 Exhibition tour with curators and artists
17:00 The Happy Hypocrite reading night: Without Reduction, Reading Room
18:00 Self Luminous Society performance “It’s in the Air”, South hall
19:00 Clothing embroidery workshop based on Jungian psychoanalysis together with an artist group Tissue Evolution Club (T.E.C.), Reading Room
The workshop has three rules:
1. Participants have to bring their own embroidery materials (clothes they want to embroider, needles and thread)
2. At any given time, there must be at least one person embroidering
3. You should bring a snack (wine counts as a snack)
~Sunday~
16:00 Exhibition tour with curators and artists
16:00-17:00 Emotional awareness through collage workshop for children (up to 7–8 years old, just in Lithuanian language)
Partners: Lithuanian council for culture, Vilnius Art Academy, TelepART, Soome Instituut, Department of Cultural Affairs (Taipei City Government), Embassy of France in Lithuania, Creative Industries Fund NL, Mondriaan Fonds, Stroom Den Haag, Kone Foundation, TelepART
Media partners: Lithuanian National Radio and Television, 15min
