Foto: Smirna Kulenović

Exhibition ‘no thing imprevious to my alchemy’

Monika Jagusinskytė (LTU), Smirna Kulenović (BIH)

Curated by Justina Špeirokaitė

One young woman wanders the hills and plains.
She is from this time;
the ones under her feet are resting,
the earth protecting their eternal sleep.
Their memory seeps through the green blanket that covers them.
She knows that her alchemy can preserve their memory.

Six women meet at the table.
They come from different times, not such distant places.
Each bears her unique skill — her strength, her power.
Their concern is of the present day.
The food they share is a manifestation of the earth’s wisdom,
expressed through their alchemical-like practices.
It soothes both body and spirit.
It must be preserved.

As the title suggests, this exhibition is about the undoubtedly transformative abilities of people and especially women. In an attempt, against all the obstacles and conditions, to express the emphasis on the transgenerationally passed-over mastery of the earth’s wisdom—be it manifesting in food, as Monika Jagusinskytė’s artwork suggests, or be it manifesting in the sheet of paper acting as a silent document, as Smirna Kulenović’s artwork does. The exhibition is both a slow, ritual-like gathering, meant to give respect and concern to the earth and all it bears, and a silent remembrance and awareness laboratory, where alchemical-like actions are penetrating the pulsating past through memory and tradition into the present concern of future forgetfulness.

About artists

Monika Jagusinskytė (b. 1995) is an artist based in Vilnius. Using photography, video and text, the artist captures the human body in everyday life, its constant change in relation to its environment. Her compositions are like phases of weightlessness, blurring the line between reality and dream, beauty and decay.

Smirna Kulenović  (b. 1994) is a Bosnian transdisciplinary artist, director, researcher, filmmaker, lecturer, and a PhD candidate at the University of the Arts Berlin. Her work spans contemporary performance, theatre, and dance, with notable contributions that explore the intersection of art, ecology, and embodied memory.