Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts

Sensible Grounds: Tuning into the Rhythms of the Chronic

: Published on Saturday, 10 July 2021 09:33

1- Clarissa Thieme, CAN'T YOU SEE THEM? – REPEAT (photo print), 2019. Courtesy of the artist. 2 - Clarissa Thieme, Today Is 11th June 1993 (film still), 2018. Courtesy of the artist. 3 - NSRD, Performance in the Palm House of Salaspils Botanic Garden(props), 1987. Courtesy of Hardijs Lediņš, LCCA. 4 - NSRD, Iceberg's longing / Volcano's dreams(film still), 1987. Courtesy of Hardijs Lediņš, LCCA. 5 - Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Black Bach Artsakh (film still), 2021. Courtesy of the artists. 6 - NSRD, Dr. Eneser's Binocular Dance Lessons(film still), 1987. Courtesy of Hardijs Lediņš, LCCA.

Sensible Grounds: Tuning into the Rhythms of the Chronic

17 July – 12 September 2021

Open Tuesdays through Sundays, 10 am – 5 pm

Nida Art Colony of the Vilnius Academy of Arts
E. A. Jonušo str. 3
Nida LT-93127

Works in the exhibition by: Clarissa Thieme, NSRD (The Workshop of Restoration of Unfelt Feelings), Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Works presented at the open-air screening programme by: Ayreen Anastas and Rene Gabri, Beatriz Santiago Muñoz, Wendelien van Oldenborgh

Curator: Azar Mahmoudian

Sensible Grounds: Tuning into the Rhythms of the Chronic displays sculptural installations, archival material, and films that employ fiction, as well as those which do away with images entirely. This collection of moving image practices contemplate historical capacities of cinematic space as a medium of testament, as well as being a physical and mental environment: a refuge, a holding place, with an unsettling gravity to enact, unblock, and care for forms of sociality.

The invited artists re-visit pasts, which have been prematurely turned into history: moments of collective desire, struggle and entrapments, the past films of their own, or others. While it seems our political struggles are uncannily repeated, they re-articulate what it means to bear witness and re-vision worlds: a blind version of a film proposing deep listening, a score for an eye dance “through the diffused borders of the approximate”, a camera turning bright, or a request to “watch over” a film-world as an act of care.

But what is this desire for re-visiting? Is it the return of the soul to the scene of its scarring over and over, in order to heal? Is it a ritual for remembrance? Or is it acknowledgment of inheritance and indebtedness, where trans-historical bonds or intergenerational time and memory turn into holding grounds for (con)current struggles?

This perhaps comes with re-learnings of the temporalities through which perceptions of political agency are shaped. Could we do away with the time of the crisis and emergency, tuning into temporal rhythms of the chronic, from the eventual to the ongoing and everyday? How to understand the repetitions of history, or the conditions of chronic struggle, not as loops (and loopholes), but as dilated presents and presences? Instead of again and again and again, can we think of now and now, and now, and now?

The exhibition and open-air screenings are part of the multi-chaptered program, Sensible Grounds, curated by Azar Mahmoudian with previous iterations Sensible Grounds: Tectonics of Camaraderie at MAAT and Rua das Gaivotas, Lisbon; Tensta Konsthal, Stockholm; and upcoming iterations at SAVVY Contemporary, Berlin; Fundació Antoni Tàpies, Barcelona; and RCA London, among others (2018–2021). The programme at NAC is part of the project 4Cs: From Conflict to Conviviality through Creativity and Culture, a European Cooperation project, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the EU and the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

Graphic design by Vytautas Volbekas. Photo by Inga Jankūnaitė.

Wendelien van Oldenborgh, From Left to Night LP, 2019. Photo by Inga Jankūnaitė. Courtesy of the artist.

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Installation view. Photo by Inga Jankūnaitė. Courtesy of the artists.

2n author Nendre Zilinskaite

Clarissa Thieme, Today is 11th of June 1993, 2018. Photo by Nendrė Žilinskaitė. Courtesy of the artist.

Clarissa Thieme Today Is 11th June 1993 3

Still from Today Is 11th June 1993, 2018. Courtesy of the artist.

Clarissa Thieme, Can't You See Them? - Repeat, 2019. Photo by Inga Jankūnaitė. Courtesy of the artist.

3n author Nendre Zilinskaite

Clarissa Thieme, Can't You See Them? - Repeat, 2019. Photo by Inga Jankūnaitė. Courtesy of the artist.

From left: NSRD, Dr Eneser's Binocular Dance Lessons, 1986-1987. Farewell to the Empire, 1996. Iceberg's Longing/Volcano Dreams, 1987. Photo by Nendrė Žilinskaitė. Courtesy of the artists.

Still from Farewell to the Empire. Rēzija Kalniņa, Hardijs Lediņš, Uģis Vītiņš at Farewell to the Empire performance, 1991. Photo by Valts Kleins. Courtesy Archive of Hardijs Lediņš, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA), Riga

NSRDcollage

NSRD, Dr Eneser's Binocular Dance Lessons (film stills), 1987. Courtesy of Hardijs Ledinš, LCCA.

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Dr Eneser's Binocular Dance Lessons performance in the Palm House of Salaspils Botanic Garden, 1987. Photo by Māris Bogustovs.

NSRD, Iceberg’s Longing/Volcano’s Dreams (film still), 1987. Courtesy of Hardijs Lediņš, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA), Riga.

Exhibition booklet. Graphic design by Vytautas Volbekas.

NAC urges all visitors to be mindful of the current protective measures against the spreading of Covid-19: we kindly ask you to wear appropriate face coverings in the exhibition space and keep a safe distance from other visitors and staff. The number of visitors in the space allowed at a time will be limited.