Sluts. Home Archive

The year 1999. An apartment on a certain street in Vilnius, walls covered with shabby wallpaper. Bright-coloured dresses, vivid shawls and piercing, playful, almost self-alluring glances. Flowers and patterns imitating tiger’s fur, gleaming high-heels on hairy legs. Cigarettes burning in a holder and a resounding echo of laughter shielded by the home’s walls that makes the sheer curtains flutter. It is hardly something to be found in the repositories of official archives or the files describing them.

The exhibition by Volungė Aušra Griškonytė delves into the archive of the artist’s photographic series ‘Sluts’ (‘Kekšės’, 1999–2003). The title ‘Sluts’ came intuitively – it was merely a word that kept ringing during the act of photographing, but it captures the impossibility of a peaceful queer life at the time as well. ‘Sluts’ are people from the margins, people whom society refused to accept. Volungė portrayed her own surroundings and very close friends, their fluid games with constantly crossdressing gender identity, attempting to break free from rigid social norms. The photographs, shot more than twenty years ago, take us to the past home of the artist and her friends, because only there did such forms of self-expression – usually pushed out of public life – seem possible. In a society that was already independent but still rather narrow-minded about personal freedom, public space for queer people was synonymous with selective hostility and a sense of being unsafe.

The photographs in the series are intuitive reflections on imposed social norms, fluid identities, (in)visibility and something precious that needed to be hidden away… Joy. In the realities of harsh everyday life, a safe space was created from what was available. In the photographs of Volungė, the safety veil was patched together from old lace and temporary folds of horticultural fleece, sincere friendships and performative plays. A prettier life thus composed within the domestic environment not only provided an escape, but also functioned as a support system.

The word ‘archive’ in the exhibition’s title is not simply a reference to the space where it takes place – the Lithuanian Queer Archive ‘išgirsti’ – or the journey several decades back in time. Despite facing censorship and hostility following the series’ release, Volungė’s ‘Sluts’ were not totally invisible and unexhibited: after a while, several works were displayed at the MO museum, the Contemporary Art Centre of Vilnius and other art institutions in Lithuania. This exhibition, however, focuses not solely on photographs that are already becoming somewhat iconic, but also on lesser-seen images from the series and footage that have remained in the artist’s archives and on the institutional margins.

Volungė Aušra Griškonytė is an artist and art educator. Her projects document queer community and employ the photographic medium to explore gender norms and their various expressions. Her photographs are intertwined with and stem from lifelong and new friendships, as well as close personal bonds with the people who have and continue to pose for her lens.

Curators: Augustas Čičelis and Marija Martinaitytė. Graphic design: Anton Karyuk.

The exhibition opens on the eve of the Vilnius Queer Festival Kreivės, on September 3, 2026, from 4:00 to 7:00 PM, and will remain open on Thursdays from 4:00 to 7:00 PM, or by appointment, until October 1. The address: „išgirsti“, Darbininkų g. 8-1 (the building undergoing renovation, open entrance, three steps up), Vilnius. More information: isgirsti.lt/lgbt.

The exhibition is partially funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.