When all this is over, let’s meet up! is a work centered around Anastasia Sosunova’s interest in secular rites of passage and protection in contemporary Lithuania. The residents of gated neighbourhoods – enclosures that are gaining popularity yearly in this country – hide in the bellies of their own monsters, seeking distance from Others alien to them. Valleys, Hills, Pinewoods, Pearls, etc. – such are the marvellous names of these settlements that conceal fences and fortress guards, access to private beaches, those names plastered on advertisements beaming with young happy families, and accordingly promises for a safe future and fulfilled desires. An opportunity for a few to escape from the self-inflicted hustle and bustle of the city, into a like-minded space that encodes against the undesired flows of what is left behind, yet providing thresholds to cross the monsters’ jaws unscathed. A flag-waving fortress against, and an extension of the post-Soviet, the ‘post-political’ neoliberal city restlessly trying to catch up with the ideals of the ‘Western’ lifestyle.
In the video, smartphone footage from the visits of gated neighbourhoods in Vilnius is intertwined with the excerpts from the collective popular memory and personal imaginary: movie “Koschei the Deathless” of 1944, a song from the 1968 cartoon “The Little Mermaid”, Beyonce’s “Halo” remake, and a recording of a romance song coming from the family table. How else can we speak of contemporary ghosts, myths, and castles if not through the politically charged folkloric flotsam? The villain Koschei reveals a story of his neatly and skilfully hidden heart, the only vulnerable part of his body,– and thus viewers are invited to delve into an array of stories and societal tells. On magical thinking, political myths, and the proliferation of nationalistic tendencies, fortification of gated communities and nuclear families, feelings of insecurity and vulnerability in the unpredictable metropolis; and the power of magic, ritual and faith in the times of the pandemic. When all of this is over,…
Anastasia Sosunova (b. 1993, Ignalina) is a visual artist based in Vilnius. Her interdisciplinary practice consists of video, installation, sculpture, graphic art, and texts. She has had solo presentations at Britta Rettberg, Munich (2021); the Screens Series program at New Museum, New York (2021); Swallow, Vilnius (2021); Kogo, Tartu, Estonia (2019); and a two-person show at Editorial, Vilnius (2018). She has also recently shown her work at the Prospectif Cinéma program at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021); Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2021); 14th Baltic Triennial, CAC, Vilnius (2021); 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2020); Artists’ Film International, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); and The Sunroom, Richmond USA (2018). She is the author of Express Method (2021) and the digital artist’s book Detox Siblings (2019), and won the JCDecaux prize in 2018. In 2022 she will be part of a group show at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius and a two-person show at SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen.
When all this is over, let’s meet up! is a work centered around Anastasia Sosunova’s interest in secular rites of passage and protection in contemporary Lithuania. The residents of gated neighbourhoods – enclosures that are gaining popularity yearly in this country – hide in the bellies of their own monsters, seeking distance from Others alien to them. Valleys, Hills, Pinewoods, Pearls, etc. – such are the marvellous names of these settlements that conceal fences and fortress guards, access to private beaches, those names plastered on advertisements beaming with young happy families, and accordingly promises for a safe future and fulfilled desires. An opportunity for a few to escape from the self-inflicted hustle and bustle of the city, into a like-minded space that encodes against the undesired flows of what is left behind, yet providing thresholds to cross the monsters’ jaws unscathed. A flag-waving fortress against, and an extension of the post-Soviet, the ‘post-political’ neoliberal city restlessly trying to catch up with the ideals of the ‘Western’ lifestyle.
In the video, smartphone footage from the visits of gated neighbourhoods in Vilnius is intertwined with the excerpts from the collective popular memory and personal imaginary: movie “Koschei the Deathless” of 1944, a song from the 1968 cartoon “The Little Mermaid”, Beyonce’s “Halo” remake, and a recording of a romance song coming from the family table. How else can we speak of contemporary ghosts, myths, and castles if not through the politically charged folkloric flotsam? The villain Koschei reveals a story of his neatly and skilfully hidden heart, the only vulnerable part of his body,– and thus viewers are invited to delve into an array of stories and societal tells. On magical thinking, political myths, and the proliferation of nationalistic tendencies, fortification of gated communities and nuclear families, feelings of insecurity and vulnerability in the unpredictable metropolis; and the power of magic, ritual and faith in the times of the pandemic. When all of this is over,…
Anastasia Sosunova (b. 1993, Ignalina) is a visual artist based in Vilnius. Her interdisciplinary practice consists of video, installation, sculpture, graphic art, and texts. She has had solo presentations at Britta Rettberg, Munich (2021); the Screens Series program at New Museum, New York (2021); Swallow, Vilnius (2021); Kogo, Tartu, Estonia (2019); and a two-person show at Editorial, Vilnius (2018). She has also recently shown her work at the Prospectif Cinéma program at Centre Pompidou, Paris (2021); Futura Centre for Contemporary Art, Prague (2021); 14th Baltic Triennial, CAC, Vilnius (2021); 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2020); Artists’ Film International, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2020); and The Sunroom, Richmond USA (2018). She is the author of Express Method (2021) and the digital artist’s book Detox Siblings (2019), and won the JCDecaux prize in 2018. In 2022 she will be part of a group show at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius and a two-person show at SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen.
