In the artistic program of the “Audra” festival, works by Lithuanian and foreign creators will spread across the floors, corridors, and rooms of the former Kaunas metal factory, and visitors will have to discover them themselves.
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The group exhibition will feature works not only by Lina Lapelytė, currently very prominent on the international art scene, but also by a host of Lithuanian and foreign artists. Its live program will be complemented by Paulius Janušonis, Adam Russell-Jones, and Deva Schubert, who will stage three performances at the “Pergalė” factory.
After an intensive program dedicated to the 150th anniversary of Mikalojus Konstantinas Čiurlionis, “Audra” this year entrusted its curation to the Berlin-based curatorial group “MOLT”. The collective, uniting five members, focuses on creating art events and exploring spaces that perform other functions in everyday life.
When selecting program curators, the festival highly valued their adaptability and flexibility in working with different types of spaces. The search was for curators who could work and think beyond the boundaries of contemporary art.
“It is precisely the curators’ courage and dynamism that determine the program’s impact. This year, we aim to eliminate the conservatism and fear of being misunderstood that forms within our own circles, in a closed bubble, from the art program. We have opportunities to experiment, and inviting foreign curators to join the festival is not a one-off initiative. It is part of a larger goal to promote the program’s internationality, allowing the festival to shed its status as a Kaunas enclave,” says Tautvydas Urbelis, head of the festival’s art program.
According to “MOLT”, this year’s exhibition will not be structured as a single, predetermined narrative.
“We want the visitor to become not just an observer, but also a participant in the exhibition. There will be no single correct route or a universally experienced story. Every turn, every noticed hint, and every discovered artwork will create a personal path through the exhibition – the visit will become a kind of game with the factory space,” say the curators who developed the exhibition concept.
Works will become guides
This year’s program concept is based on anthropologist Tim Ingold’s idea of wayfinding. According to it, we get to know our environment not by following a pre-drawn line, but by moving, observing, and discovering landmarks.
Small-format works scattered throughout the “Pergalė” factory will become individual coordinates of a common artistic map. Each of them will mark the accents of a larger narrative, and the positions of different artists will be united into a whole not by a conventional exhibition sequence, but by the visitor’s movement and attention.
The map received at the entrance will contain poems, symbols, riddles, and other clues related to specific artworks. These will not only help navigate the space but also serve as an additional tool for interpreting the exhibition.
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The exhibition opening event will take place on September 3rd, at 6 PM, and its most important moments will be marked by performances where bodies, movement, voice, and sound will activate the industrial architecture of the factory.
On September 3rd, at 8:30 PM, the evening program will begin with a screening of a work by Italian interdisciplinary artist Valentina Parati. In the director’s and screenwriter’s work, fiction, hybrid cinema, and research into invisible power systems that shape human identity converge.
On the same evening, at 9 PM, Lithuanian artist Paulius Janušonis will perform, exploring consciousness, mortality, and identity shaped by media manipulation, geopolitical crises, and technological development. Creating videos, performances, and music, he seeks fundamental structures of human experience and presents his works in international exhibitions and art events.
On September 4th, at 8:30 PM, dance artist Adam Russell-Jones, born in the UK and creating in Berlin, will present the performance “Release the Hounds”. This is a work about dance in the face of crisis, inspired by dance marathons of the Great Depression era and rave culture. It explores dance as an escape from reality and, at the same time, a way to survive within it.
On September 5th, at 8 PM, the program will continue with Berlin-based choreographer and interdisciplinary artist Deva Schubert and her performance “Glitch Choir”, which she will perform together with performance artist Chihiro Araki. During it, the idea of a digital glitch will be transferred to voice and body, reinterpreting the tradition of lament and public mourning.
In addition, the program is complemented by an open call for FLINTA singers and performers to join the “Glitch Choir” workshops. In these, through dissonant singing, lament, and vocal experiments, the collective voice will be explored as a physical and communal experience.
The exhibition will also feature artists Ada Bae Nilsen, Ariana Krieger, Brad Nath, Deivydas Vytautas Aukščiūnas, Friedrich Andreoni, Hedda Grevle Ottesen, Irving Ramó, Jonathan Joosten, Leonardo Belardinelli, Manuel Goetz, Mia Van Veen, Minh Kha Le, Sandra Vaka, Serge Sanchez, Shaly Lopez, and Verónica Janovec.
Their diverse practices – from painting, photography, and sculpture to video, sound, and installations – will merge into a single narrative under the factory roof.
The “Audra” art program at the “Pergalė” factory will take place from September 3rd to 6th, from 1 PM to 11 PM. It will be complemented by concerts, daytime events, and parties held over four days in various Kaunas spaces.
More information can be found here.
