Meno Parkas Gallery (Rotušės a. 27, 44279 Kaunas, Lithuania)
"When the clouds descend on the land, when the mist raises from within it, all is transformed. The shapes, previously neatly defined by the relationship of light and shadow, dissolve and turn into a matter that vibrates along with the particles of water breaking the light. The horizon becomes uncertain, the landscape becomes uncertain: no shapes are fixed and nothing is real, if real at all possible.
I, too, become uncertain. I look at the horizon and observe the landscape stretching out and away from below and beyond my feet, and I do not know what it is."
Opalescent by Daina Pupkevičiūtė is rather a dialogue than an exhibition. Sound and video materials and objects that participate in it are fragments, reverberations, paraphrases and reflections from the research project she is at the moment carrying out, within it she looks into the relationships between humans and nonhuman animals, plants and abiotic vectors in the context of climate crisis. This dialogue is a continuation of the research trajectories - relationalities, care and catastrophe - Daina has embarked on since 2018, expanding further. This time living, growing participants of the exhibition share the space of the gallery with the slowly moving fog, with sounds collected in the
Alpine horizon as well as recorded in the studio as well as with the human voice.
Daina Pupkevičiūtė works in an interdisciplinary manner, balancing in between artistic methods, education and research work in the field of anthropology. She creates sound, video, performance and text, applying her creative approaches in her ethnographic work and vice versa: involving her ethnographic material into the process of artistic creation. She is rather interested in the process than in the finite (objects).
The author works in the realm of sound since 2008. During this time she has released 6 solo and 4 collaborative albums, her compositions have been included in a variety of compilations in Lithuania and internationally. An important part of her sound practice is sound for installation, theater and contemporary dance. During 2018-2022 as a producer and curator she has developped MATTERS. Platform for industrial culture (in the context of Kaunas 2022), aimed at fostering the community of the scenes of industrial, experimental and adventurous music.
In the field of performance art the author works since 2011. Over this time she has been performing in a variety of performance art festivals and actions both in Lithuania and internationally. In 2011 - 2018, along with Vaida Tamoševičiūtė, she established and curated an international performance art festival CREATurE Live Art.
Daina Pupkevičiūtė facilitates workshops in sound and performance art, as well as in anthropology. At present she is performing a role of the doctoral student and junior research fellow at the University of Tartu. In 2023 she has a new album coming up in a collaboration with Italian artists, as well as a text + soundscape in a bioarts publication.
Author is thankful to Magali Gribaudo for the dialogue sans fin.
Support: fieldwork (July 2021 - May 2022) was carried out with the support of European Regional Development Fund; residency period in Maajaam (Estonia) to prepare for the exhibition was supported by Lithuanian Culture Council.
The exhibition is part of gallery's project "Ether. 2023". Project is partly financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
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