Paradoxically, in the professional jargon of librarians and archivists, “a drop of dew” is a metaphor for perfect archival conditions. Just as the dew that condenses on a blade of grass needs a certain balance of temperature, humidity and pressure, so the most fragile documents in archives need extremely precise climate control to avoid the invisible, devastating dew that destroys them in plain sight. The photographs presented in the exhibition by Ona Julija Lukas Steponaitytė capture the reconstruction of the central storage building of Vrublevskis Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences as well as the modernization of its archiving infrastructure, which began in 2016. Over more than thirty years, the brick walls of the vault were penetrated by moisture, and the climate control system was insufficient for maintaining security of its paper collections. During the reconstruction only the reinforced concrete skeleton of the building was left intact, while the worn-out Soviet façades were torn down and then rebuilt again, brick by brick, carefully recreating their original design. The photographs in the exhibition, some of which were found in the unofficial archive of the library staff, reveal what was designed to be hidden from sight – the material infrastructure of memory along with a rupture in its anonymous history, which in turn is inseparable from the precisely calculated and state-bought promise of preservation of memory for its inheritance by future generations. In these photographs, the transformed interior of the building is revealed as a kind of optical device, establishing a matrix where the aesthetically interested photographic gaze encounters autonomous, self-regulating algorithms of halfway installed data-collecting apparatuses, capturing their invisibility and indifference towards sight.
Observing the reconstruction of the Vrublevskis Library’s repository, artist Ona Julija Lukas Steponavičiūtė began creating the photo exhibition “Dew”, which explores archiving as an infrastructure of memory and history. The exhibition is on view at the LDS art space “Medūza” (Šv. Jonų St. 11, Vilnius) until February 1. It is organized by “Swallow” and curated by Edgaras Gerasimovičius. It is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
Ona Julija Lukas Steponaitytė (b. 1992, Vilnius) is an artist working with photography and film. Her work has been showcased in international exhibitions, including “The Milk of Dreams” at the Arsenale, 59th Venice Biennale (2022); Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Liste Art Fair, Basel (2020); RIBOCA2, Riga (2020); Nida Art Colony, Nida (2020); GAK Bremen, Bremen (2022); Kunsthal Extra City, Antwerp (2022); Canal Projects, New York (2023); and Kunsthal Charlottenborg, Copenhagen (2023).
Ona Julija Lukas Steponaitytė
Dew
12.13 2024 – 02.01 2025
Medūza
Šv. Jono g. 11, Vilnius
