VIKTORIJA STAPONĖ exhibition of photography and book presentation “Portrait Of My Land”
Vernissage 25 November, 6 pm.
Artists about the exhibition and book
The beginning
I was born in a land where I wanted to become a human, carrying the idea of peace between existence and the end of it. Right from the beginning, in the core of our existence, we are given two qualities – a wish to never end and the inevitable ending. When we face the question of our eternity, our bodies start carrying a huge block of anxiety that breaks as if it was an Earth plate that moves so much that it makes us small, helpless and invisible.
Why we cannot accept the idea that we can both be eternal and at the same time have a sense of our temporality as a shadow that let our souls rest under it when the essence loses its power.
I was born in a land where right from the beginning of my conscious self I am learning about the peace between the happiness and the ending.
This book of photographs is a blend of my relationship with experience that repeats in my life and of how differently I react to it each time. It is an intimate and, at the same time, open look at the temporality, enabling to see the true meaning and value of happiness.
In this book, I strip down the spiritual body of a human, making it feel obviously uncomfortable, but also liberated. The photographs and the texts are about this hard to explain feeling inside in the core of our existence that sometimes reminds us to stop, look back and/or move forward faster.
I dedicate this book to everyone who is gone, who has lost and who is still here.