BEING OTHER, a new community, 2009-11, HDV video, 10’46”, color, sound
“A new community” was the title of my proposal for a public project at Kaunas Biennial – Live Examination, in order to generate a temporary community where shared authorship, open discussion and collaboration could take place. By using video as a creative and political tool, how could we together develop a reflection based on themes of identity, otherness, home vs. exile, having the city and its memory as departure points? In the resulting piece, Being Other, a group of Lithuanian participants expresses then their feelings of belonging and/or displacement, through a journey that led them to an abandoned hotel building from Soviet times. Juxtaposing the voice of an omnipresent architect (who talks about the process, politics and history of that building over the years), and the strangeness of such unfinished architecture with the human body, one opens up the possibility of several metaphors and other more material connections, including the realization that in a such a neglected place we can unveil more intimate and psychological aspects of ourselves.