Neringa Public Library
Pamario g. 53
Nida 93124
Join artist, curator, and researcher Agnė Bagdžiūnaitė for a performative talk and the presentation of her publication Before I After: Stories of Women from Neringa, developed during her residency at Nida Art Colony in 2020. The book features fragments of conversations with women from Neringa, exploring their lives and work before and after Lithuania’s independence. These personal stories reflect broader shifts in the town’s resort and fishing industries, the rise of German tourism in the 1990s, and the enduring marks of the Soviet past.
During the event, Agnė will also present a performance titled The Remainder, an imagined dialogue with the director of a former workers’ canteen, preserved today as a silent monument to industrial labor and occupation. The performance bridges archival storytelling and live performance, offering a layered view of memory, identity, and transition.
Sitting in a room steeped in memory and scent, I listen to stories full of pride and contradiction—stories of food, labor, loss, and resilience:
“It never smelled bad,” she told me.
“We always had the best ingredients…”
She sits in the dark room, filled with ancient smells. I eat the thick, dark borscht she gave me, nodding at everything she says.
Could it be that the meat factory, producing everything from raw meat, never had a smell? Is she lying? I am amazed by her confidence. She doesn’t blink.
I wonder what she votes for nowadays. She isn’t afraid to tell me everything she thinks is wrong with the present and how proud she is of the past. She would be disappointed in me, just as she is with the world today.
I don’t want her to be mad. I just want to understand.
Funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture. Thanks to Neringa Public Library for hosting the event.
