Life Challenges of the Older Generation. Competition Versus Order and Justice.

In my works I seek to reveal attempts by the residents of Lithuania to adapt themselves and change in a dynamic social environment based on competition. In this situation older people often find themselves in a difficult position as their views were formed in the Soviet period. The older characters in my work, however, try to articulate contemporary problems and overcome them ("Renewal", video, 2006). "If you don't think, then you don't have what to say, right?" (object, 2006) says a long-term employee of an art centre about an exhibition visitor's narrow views. She voices her thoughts, revealing someone who has lived through several epochs and the effort to chase the rapidly changing life. Also evident are the wounds left by the dynamic change of political, economic and social life in Lithuania. Non-progressive "unthinking" people have to immerse themselves in the nostalgia for the past, distance themselves from society based on pluralism and liberalism, and fall for the populist promises of strict order and justice.

The Mechanisms of Controlling the Members of Society.

In my works I criticize certain fragments of the past, and seek to positively remake the situations and phenomena from an earlier period. Using an excerpt from the Lithuanian feature film "The Last Day of Holidays" (dir. A. Zebriunas, 1964) created in the Soviet period, I try to look at the past from today's perspective ("Dance" video from the project “Wave”, 2006). In Soviet films not only adults, but also children, were turned into tools for propaganda. In an attempt to question this former situation, I gave contemporary children studying at a music school the freedom to model the mood of this film. They composed different versions of the soundtrack for the excerpt – something that the previous younger generations were not able to do as their creative initiative was limited. In this way I direct attention to unused creative possibilities, which were not offered by the strict Soviet film production system that was concentrated in the director's hands.
In my opinion, the phenomena similar to those that existed in the past can be found today as well. I represent the world of the Lithuanian woman through a comparison of the designs of dresses and costumes of the Vilnius Fashion House produced in the 1970s and those produced in the present day. Among them I find more differences than similarities ("The Collection" dresses and costumes from the project “Wave”, 2006), which may be regarded as a kind of nostalgia for the past. I consider the tendencies of contemporary fashion more important and try to criticize them with regard to the earlier fashion.
In the Soviet period Lithuanian fashion was ideologically limited – its simplicity, practicality and universality, rather than individuality, was emphasized. In contemporary life however, despite its liberal forms and the features of the free market, the world is affected by globalization, which uses controlling instruments thus limiting the individual almost as if appropriating the rhetoric of the Soviet system. An obvious example is the fixed dress codes widespread in the contemporary fashion industry, which offer a fashion show with particularly strict rules of the game. I would dare to assert that the contemporary dress code system not only subjugates the person, but also eliminates those who do not yield to the dress code – those persons are publicly criticized. "Even the new fashion tendencies introduced at the beginning of each season are basically speculated only for the purpose of increasing the sales, while fashion itself does not change so rapidly as it may seem at first sight" (the art director of the Vilnius Fashion House J. Talaikyte).
In my projects I try to question the phenomenon of the merging the present and the past, pay attention to controversial moments in history. When creating the sound project "Double Piano Sonata No. 16" (2007), I collaborated once again with young musicians. Through a popular classical work performed by several Austrian students I seek to direct attention to classical music, which was turned into a rather important ideological tool in totalitarian states in the middle of the 20th century.
The mechanisms of controlling the members of society are not limited to the set of tools of film, fashion and music. In the series of portraits of veteran women employees of the oil processing company and plant "Mazeikiu Nafta" (photographs "Veteran Women", 2007) I draw parallels between the rituals of paying homage to long-term workers in the fairly close past and today. Currently homage paid to veterans within post-Soviet countries is ambiguous: on the one hand it is tainted by Soviet rhetoric, and on the other it smacks of 'worker of the month' strategies employed by capitalist companies to encourage productivity and profitability.