BELLY-UP DREAM (DOG OR FISH?)
Today, the pursuit of happiness has turned into an industry of esoteric practices and pharmaceutical experiments, and rituals of happiness manifestation are performed at corporate events about a healthy soul. Everything seems ephemeral, like a dream from which it is difficult to get out. If understanding the states of modern existence is so difficult, what hope is there to change it? The possibility of change dissolves into a void of broken fragments and a forced sense of happiness, which ultimately only adds to a deep sense of melancholy.
So, in the presence of happiness, we always think about sadness: we deny it in every way, we look for ways to avoid it. What if the happiness industry is actually a direct reflection of the sadness bussiness?
In response to the question, the Kaunas Artists' House presents "Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?)" - a program of exhibitions, education and performative events exploring the multifaceted nature of sadness. Through the synthesis of discursive dialogues and educational initiatives created by contemporary artists Zoe Williams, Liliana Zeic, artist duo Liudmila, Žygimantas Kudirka, Ieva Rižė and Kristoffer Ala Ketola, and performance artists Sasha Wilde, Johhan Rosenberg, Paulius Janušonis, we will try to reveal compilations of melancholy.
The program created by the curators Agnes Bagdžiūnaitė, Edvinas Grinkevičius and Asta Volungė will reveal different aspects of researching the industry of sadness. Dissemination of the interaction of the body, sound, aesthetic sensations will allow you to dive into the depths of sadness, face its essence and reflect on its meaning in a constantly changing dreamscape.
Project Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) is funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture
programa
April
The artist lives and works in Marseille and London. Her practice encompasses various forms of art, including installations, moving images, ceramics, painting, and performance, with her process and outcomes often intertwined. These elements are combined to create engaging objects and environments where playfully and destructively, themes of eroticism and grotesque, crafts, rituals, gender, consumption, and excess intersect.
The artist is represented by the Ciaccia Levi gallery (Paris-Milan). She has collaborated with various international institutions, such as Fraeme, La Friche la Belle de Mai, Tate St-Ives, the Robertso Institute of Art, DCA, Dortmunder Kunstverein, Mimosa House, Le Crédac, and many others.
sashawildedotcom.wordpress.com
Self-taught sound, performance, and multimedia artists who are drawn to secrets and the forbidden. Lithuanian migrants living between London and Helsinki. Main artistic themes include monstrosity, (trans)incarnation, language and migration, erotica and death, Vajrayana Buddhism and occultism, and moral panic. The latter themes are also closely related to Sasha Wilde's personal traumatic experience, living in a small Lithuanian town.
Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) | Zoe Williams exhibition
Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) | Zoe Williams + Sasha Wilde
Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) | Cultural Education Activity
May
Writer, artist, and performer working in the fields of interactive fiction, speculative science fiction, artificial languages, and avant-garde rap. His creations often take unexpected forms: from alternative reality audio guides to radio plays created for car salons, from hacking into public media to interactive solutions where the reader or listener must complete the work themselves. Ž. Kudirka has released a book of interactive poetry, eight music albums, and performed hundreds of shows in Lithuania and worldwide, creating works and performances in the field of contemporary art (Baltic Triennial, Venice Biennale). He has received numerous awards in various fields: music ("Alternative Artist of the Year"), advertising ("Cannes Young Lions Silver"), visual arts ("Music Video of the Year"), and literature ("Best Slam Poet in Europe"), and has recently been nominated as one of the best playwrights in the country. He has performed hundreds of shows in his native language in Lithuania, but often reaches foreign audiences as well. Performances in English and artificial languages have been held in Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Iceland, Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Ireland, the United Kingdom, France, Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Israel, and Hong Kong.
Daina Pupkevičiūtė creates sound, video, and performance art; she writes and explores the relationships between humans and non-humans across time, space, and in the context of the climate crisis. She is concerned with resilience, sustainability, and responsibility, as well as body politics, boundaries, and borders. Art, for her, is one of the forms of relating to others. Daina's creative practice is interdisciplinary, partly based on qualitative research approaches. While currently focusing more on personal practice and scholarly activities, she values exchanges occurring in the contexts of co-education and collaboration - organization, curation, etc. She is currently working on a video performance series called "Injured Landscapes" and conducting research on video work about the toxicity of war and ecocide.
Since 2012, she has resided in artist residencies in Estonia, Germany, the United Kingdom, Portugal, Poland, Iceland, and Lithuania; she has performed in Lithuania, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, Sweden, Switzerland, Iceland, Italy, Germany, Poland, the United Kingdom, Turkey, and Bulgaria. Daina has released 7 solo albums, 4 albums as part of duets and groups; her compositions have found a place in various Lithuanian and international compilations. Highly valuing collaboration, she creates sound for performance, film, theater, and contemporary dance. From 2011 to 2018, Daina was one of the founders and curators of the international performance art festival CREATurE Live Art; from 2018 to 2022, she was the organizer and curator of the industrial culture platform MATTERS (part of Kaunas2022 program). Daina is a doctoral student at the University of Tartu. Her research subject is the climate crisis as a fundamental rupture in the relationships between humans and non-humans.
Certainly, one cannot ask a deceased writer what she thinks about a letter intended for her after her death, but Virginia Woolf would certainly have been delighted by the vibrant, discursive film by Paul B. Preciado. Paying homage to the innovative 1928 novel by the author, trans activist and philosopher Paul B. Preciado titled his debut film "Orlando" as "My Political Biography". "I am alive," he says, "I have stepped out of your fiction. Like the aristocratic youth in the novel, who overnight becomes a woman. However, in our society, this transition process is dangerous and painful. So Ruben Rizzi, who has just turned 15, boldly chooses to identify himself as a transgender boy. Rizzi is one of the 26 contemporary Orlandos, ranging in age from 8 to 70. They all wear a white baroque collar and tell their stories. Preciado is a breath-taking creator, connecting modern testimonies with excerpts from V. Woolf's novel "Orlando".
Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) | Žygimantas Kudirka exhibition opening
Dream Belly-up (Dog or Fish?) | Žygimantas Kudirka exhibition
 I Filmo perziura + diskusija-1080x565.jpg)
Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) | Movie screening + discussion
Belly-up Dream (Dog or Fish?) | Workshop with Daina Pupkevičiūtė
July
Liliana Zeic (Piskorska) is a visual artist, queer feminist, and Doctor of Visual Arts. In her artistic practice, she analyzes social issues from a feminist-queer perspective, explores queer themes, and draws on her experience growing up in the Central/Eastern European region. The artist primarily works with video, photography, objects, and text.
In 2017, she was a finalist at the Forecast Forum held at the Haus der Kulturen der Welt in Berlin and won the "Views 2019" award from the Zachęta National Gallery of Art. She has participated in over 130 individual and group exhibitions in Poland and abroad. Her works are part of private and public collections, including the Zachęta National Gallery of Art, the Wrocław Contemporary Museum, and the Municipal Gallery "Arsenal". Based in Poland, the artist has been creating under the name Zeic since 2021 and is represented by the lokal 30 gallery.
Johannes is an Estonian choreographer and artist working in the fields of dance and performance art. He studied choreography at the School for New Dance Development. Currently, he works as a freelance artist between Tallinn and Berlin, while also studying traditional Chinese medicine in Amsterdam.
Hyper-sociality, the post-internet world, and the horror of nostalgia are just a few key words that describe Rosenberg's work. Johannes leads various movement seminars (Estonian Dance Agency, ETA Intensive, School for New Dance Development, ZIL Moscow, etc.) and creative laboratories (Jacuzzi Amsterdam, Eden Lab Tallinn, SDVIG Petersburg, CND Paris), focusing mainly on the impact of intercorporeal relations and discourse on the subject.
September
Ieva Rižė's work, situated among life forms, inert materials, humanly unused or unneeded objects, and even among concepts themselves. Seeks to ignore the stability. The artist is in constant search of various means of expression in order to trace various intersections of humans and nature, the body, psychology and matter. The aesthetics of her work are often influenced by creative rituals based on fleeting images. The depicted compositions are impulsive yet create an impression of addiction. It is often unclear to whom and why they belong, but it is evident that addiction and tension tell a story.
October
"Liudmila" is the alter ego of two(?) artists. Their works span different media, from music and video works to sculptures and performances. Often, their associative artworks reflect broader thematically related phenomena, emotional expression, and collective memory. "Liudmila" anxiously examines the relationship between desires and reality, consumerism, the idols of mass culture, and deceitful promises. It is where dystopian motifs, self-doubt, and anxiety intertwine with escapism and whimsy.
The collective interdisciplinary art project "Liudmila" is initiated by the young generation artists Miša Skalskis and Milda Januševičiūtė. Also, iIn their work, the artists pay close attention to the theme of emotional self-awareness, intimacy, alienation, and solitude.
TBA soon.
 isÌtrauka (1)-1080x565.jpg)