10 pieces: colour photo-
graphs, 38 x 25 cm
The photographs document the abandoned places of the largest and most popular Lithuanian resort of Druskininkai: the burned-down Voveraite cinema theatre, the Karolis Dineika recreation park and the kitchen premises of the Nemunas sanatorium. These places are evocative symbols of mismanagement – once popular sights that have become a kind of hell set against the beautiful background of the resort. This project seeks to draw attention to the inadequacy of commercial real estate developers in the face of social architecture. These sites are like socio-ecological ‘black spots’ in the Druskininkai environment.
I look at these places captured in photographs guided by inquisitiveness, and plan to return there ten years later and capture the same places once again – perhaps they will be renewed, perhaps totally new structures will be erected, or quite possibly the old buildings will continue their dreary abandoned existence...
The Resort (II), 2008, graphics
1 piece: graphics, 100 x 70 cm, (paper, wax, ink and gouache)
While creating this project, I wanted to collect other people’s opinions about the future of this resort. I thought it might be interesting to talk with long-term patients. I chose one of the largest and most important children’s treatment centres – Saulute sanatorium – and asked the children undergoing treatment in this sanatorium to write down their wishes for this city and try to picture what Druskininkai will be like ten years later. Afterwards, by using the grattage technique popular among children, these notes were covered with wax and a mixture of black ink and gouache. The children’s greetings became illegible. This sheet of paper will be revealed after ten years – the layer of ink-gouache and wax will be scraped off, so that it would be possible to read the children’s wishes. Then it will become clear if the forecasts of children who themselves grew up and changed during ten years will have come true. Has the city become the way they wanted to see it in their childhood?
Together with the earlier and newly taken photographs, this work created together with children will reveal our previous expectations in confrontation with real changes. This long-term project will be an attempt to review how the city and ourselves are changing.
Image: from The Resort (I), 2007 (location: the Karolis Dineika recreation park), photograph