On May 11–29, the queer gallery “išgirsti” is happy to invite you to the first solo exhibition of Ieva Kotryna Ski “Intangible Connections”.
“In the corner of my eye I see you across the room, I turn my head away and feel the melting wax, burning feeling turns into the hard shell, I scrape it away. For a moment I can’t feel glass in my hand, phone does not recognize my fingerprint and I am late to take a picture, in the hasty movement it turns out blurry.”*
Ieva Kotryna Ski is an artist working between Vilnius and Paris. Ieva Kotryna holds an MA in art, research and technology from École Universitaire de Recherche ArTeC. While exploring the materiality of the digital image and its ability to convey certain emotions, her works often question our relationship to the ever-changing environment. In her practice the artist often merges different scales, varying between personal and global that also translates in the way she uses different image capturing technologies. Ieva Kotryna has shown her work at Ars Electronica Festival in Linz, Cité des Arts in Paris, Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, Editorial project space, as well as the National Drama Theatre in Vilnius. In 2021, her work “Sinkhole” won the audience award at the exhibition “JCDecaux Award: Spaces”.
The exhibition runs from May 11 to 29, open on Thursdays at 4–7 PM (or by appointment via info@isgirsti.lt). Venue: išgirsti, Darbininkų g. 8–1 (apartment building, one flight up from the entrance), Vilnius. More information: www.isgirsti.lt/erdve.
Curator: Augustas Čičelis.
*An excerpt from Ieva Kotryna Ski’s work.
The event is implemented with the financial assistance of the European Union, Vilnius City Municipality, and the Active Citizens Fund, EEA Financial Mechanism.
Photodocumentation by Severina Venckutė.
Monika Kalinauskaitė. L’Écume des jours, sentiments, mots, or – beyond the horizon of longing
You know that feeling of being safe, feeling a little fragile, but at the same time alive to the point of pain, able to feel and withstand anything? I like to imagine that it’s the episodes when you’re foaming a little bit. Your contours dissolve, and if I put you in a bath, you would paint it in colours untouched by history.
Behind this short text, there are almost three French books about foam. When I started writing, I thought of a famous surrealist novel (…jours). After changing one word, I found a lesbian coming out story (…sentiments) published under that title. After a second change, no longer doubting my originality, I came across someone’s wordpress about “writing and friendship” (…mots). Amazing, huh? The world wants to froth. When I think of Ieva’s work, I like to imagine that she uses this foam to clean her camera lenses. Maybe that’s why everything is so vivid and at the same time numb, as it is only in her own memories. Or looking at the street without glasses. A street where a queue is already forming or a riot is brewing, where the heel of someone’s shoe is being forged from guillotined jaws. When the war broke out, Ieva took me around her streets and let me see everything. It was wonderful – to see greedily and together, turning our backs on counted time, postponing the uncertain future for at least a few immortal days. In her exhibition, Ieva Kotryna Ski collects fragments of just such days and builds from them a shelter for our common foaming body, always moving in the direction of longing. To make it more beautiful, we paint each other in colours untouched by history as we travel.
A little fragile and alive to the point of pain, the works of Ieva Kotryna Ski find their way to us even through closed eyes, and probably through tear gas or heart spasms. Only friends, mosquitoes or poems behave in a similar way – the companions of celebrations, always lurking somewhere beyond the horizon of longing.
