Spoleto Biennial of fiber art - Focus on Lithuania

Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė's: “Donald bubble gum"

Rome/Spoleto [ENA] A Focus dedicated to Lithuania in the Spoleto Biennial of fiber art. Consequently, the last Focus event of this year is an astonishing and pleasant Italian look at Lithuanian textile art, which completes the cycle of this year’s cultural events and broadens it with beautiful metaphors. The Biennial of fiber art, curated by Maria Giuseppina Caldarola and Margherita Labbe takes place

in three spectacular spaces in the city of Spoleto, an ancient city in the Italian province of Perugia in east-central Umbria on a foothill of the Apennines, and each of them represent different topic: Panorama, Research, The Focus. The works of three Lithuanian textile artists are represented in the biennial followed by the keyword CONOSCERE (to get to know). All three artists professionally work with textile, take leading roles at the Academy of Arts of Vilnius, in their artistic expression textile converts into the way to tell story.

Eglė Ganda Bogdanienė introduces the interactive cycle "Changes", in which the colors on the surface of the fabric are changing up to the heat source. The visitors are invited to touch the artwork, heat it and see the changes, to become a discoverer, developer or restorer. The cycle is produced using fragments of the collection of the Palace of the Grand Dukes of Lithuania.

Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė's work “Donald bubble gum" tells the story of the decadence of the twentieth century, the collapse of the iron curtain and the deficit phenomena, relating it to recent political issues. Perhaps for some time it seemed that the Donald Bubble Gum stickers were only artefacts of the past, suitable for putting in a "time capsule" and burying in a tin box in the garden. But Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė started to be reminiscent of such phenomena, which unpredictably coincided with the US presidential election, Donald's sentimental nostalgia and anxiety about the future.

The work of Laima Oržekauskienė “Optimal position" examines the topic of gender relations. Her works are womanly self-analysis supported by the search for a common self-awareness. A female feeling ceaselessly dominates, but no one is struggling for gender confrontation. The opposition of male and female thinking is not spotlighted, which makes Laima Oržekauskienė’s work also a typical Lithuanian phenomenon: here female artists always talk incidentally about their being. When: December 8, 2018 – January 16, 2019 Where: Galleria Officina d'Arte&Tessuti, Palazzo Collicola, Museo del Costume e del Tessuto in Spoleto http://www.officinadartetessuti.com/calendario_eventi