an artist

Fire, 2005, single-channel video,
5 min 30 sec (from the video series Stages)

The video shows the abandoned outdoor summer concert stage of the Siauliai city park, quite popular with a youth audience in the Soviet period. However, over the course of time less and less events are held in this venue. Siauliai schoolgirls appearing in the video are rather pessimistic about the prospects for cultural initiatives in the city and talk about the dormant city life. Their gloomy thoughts are interrupted by sounds from a concert dedicated to the annual fire fighters’ festival held on the summer concert stage. In the words of Siauliai residents, this concert is the only remaining popular open-air event in the city. However, no matter how cheerful it may be, the city is becoming more and more boring, and young people perpetually move to larger cities.