Sun & Sea (Marina) at the Venice Biennale 2019
- Published on Tuesday, 13 November 2018 09:08
Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė, and
Lina Lapelytė
Sun & Sea (Marina)
For the 58th International Art Exhibition - La Biennale di Venezia (Venice, Italy), the Lithuanian pavilion will transform into an artificially lit, everyday beach. This will be the stage of the contemporary opera-performance Sun & Sea (Marina), by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė. The project, which may appear lighthearted at first glance – but which addresses some of the most pressing ecological issues of our time - will be presented by Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts and will be curated by Lucia Pietroiusti, Curator of General Ecology at the Serpentine Galleries, London.
Viewing the performance from above, the audience will encounter the main characters of Sun & Sea (Marina) - a modern society of holiday-goers in colorful bathing suits - lying down on the sandy floor. In the libretto, their thoughts unfold casually, easily. In their solos, actors sing about real-life troubles, happy moments, the everyday; the composition of sunscreen, a morning plan to make an omelet. Meanwhile, social and environmental crises and collapses emerge, as though from the depths of the characters’ consciousness.
Sun & Sea (Marina) will be the first version of this piece in English, with a special version conceived for the Venice Biennale. The Original version of Sun and Sea was produced by Neon Realism (former A-Laukas), with the support of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Münchner Kammerspiele, Goethe-Institut, Dresden State Theatre.
This is not the first collaboration for the three artists. Their contemporary opera Have a Good Day! - created between 2011 and 2013 and still touring the world - won six international awards in Europe. The opera toured more than twenty festivals and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and the Lithuanian National Radio. In 2018 at the Golden Cross awards in Lithuania artists were awarded Borisas Dauguvietis prize for their innovative and original ideas. In their collaborations, the artists pay special attention to the relationship between documentary and fiction, reality and poetry as well as the overlap of theatre, music and visual arts.
It is significant that such a production will be presented in Venice by Nida Art Colony, which is located in a UNESCO World Heritage Site near the Baltic Sea. Nida Art Colony is the subdivision of the Vilnius Academy of Arts that organises an international art residency program, educational projects and exhibitions. This project marks the second time that Nida Art Colony produces Lithuania’s pavilion in Venice. In 2015, during the 56th Venice Biennale, the Colony presented Dainius Liškevičius’ project Museum. The head of Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts, art critic Dr Rasa Antanavičiūtė, will serve as the co-commissioner of the national pavilion together with Jean-Baptiste Joly, founder and artistic director of Akademie Schloss Solitude residence where the development of Sun & Sea started in 2016.
Organized biennially since 1895, the international Venice Biennale is considered one of the most prestigious exhibitions of contemporary art in the world. The 2019 edition is curated by London’s Hayward Gallery Diretor, Ralph Rugoff. Lithuania has been participating in the Venice Biennale since 1999.
Project: opera-performance Sun & Sea (Marina)
Artists:
Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė (b.1983) works as film and theatre director. Her favorite creative strategies include the exploration of the tension between objective and imagined realities, and challenging anthropocentric way of thinking in a playful way. Her recent full-length film-essay Acid Forest was awarded at the Locarno International Film Festival this year and is currently touring in film festivals around the world.
Vaiva Grainytė (b.1984) is a writer, playwright, and poet. Her writer’s practice usually crosses boundaries of desk work and becomes an integral part of an interdisciplinary polylogue. Her latest collaborative works – the musical performance The Cuckoos (2018), the site-specific performance Lucky Lucy (2016) and the radio play Axis Deviation (2015), exhibit the features typical of her oeuvre: personal and collective memory, daily routine and social issues are in harmony with poetic, slightly absurd and surreal overtones. Her book of essays Peking Diaries was nominated for Book of the Year 2012 and shortlisted as one of the 12 most creative books in Lithuania.
Lina Lapelytė (b.1984) is an artist and musician. Her performance-based practice is rooted in music and flirts with pop culture, gender stereotypes and nostalgia. Her latest works were shown at CCA Ujazdowski, Warsaw; Give up the ghost! - Baltic Triennial, Tallinn; Undersong - KIM?, Riga; Pirouette - Rupert, Vilnius (solo) ; Everything i do i do it big - DRAF, London (solo); Magma - National Gallery of Art, Vilnius; Public Movement - Moderna Museet, Malmo; Parades - FIAC, Paris; Listening - Hayward touring show,UK; Block Universe - London ; Park Nights -Serpentine, London.
Curator: Lucia Pietroiusti is Curator of General Ecology and Live Programmes at the Serpentine Galleries in London. She is the co-curator of The Shape of a Circle in the Mind of a Fish (with Filipa Ramos), a year-long symposium and research project on interspecies consciousness.
Commissioners:
Rasa Antanavičiūtė is the initiator, developer and executive director of Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts.
Jean-Baptiste Joly is the founder, former head and art director of Akademie Schloss Solitude - the largest artist residency program in Germany.
Production:
Original version of Sun and Sea was produced by Neon Realism with the support of Akademie Schloss Solitude, Münchner Kammerspiele, Goethe-Institut, Dresden State Theatre.
Sun and Sea (Marina) at the 58th Venice Biennale of art is funded by the Arts council of Lithuania and produced by Nida Art colony with the support by the Ujazdowski Castle CCA, private funds and independent supporters.
Presented by:
