SWALLOWER OF SHADES

Graham Kelly & Goda Palekaitė (30min), 2023

Swallower of Shades is a film investigating the phenomenon of Egytomania or the fetishisation of Ancient Egyptian aesthetics and culture in the West. Filmed at various locations in Paris and Brussels, the work centres around the reconstructed Art Deco style Louxor Cinema, while simultaneously guiding the viewer through images and spaces of replication and appropriation: an exhibition of 3D printed duplicates of Ancient Egyptian artefacts, sequences of the violent destruction of monuments in Hollywood Cinema, and a dog resembling Anubis wandering aimlessly in a forest. 

Egyptomania stems from colonial and imperialist politics, expropriated artefacts, and processes of cultural distortion. The film’s text, written and narrated by Palekaitė, alternates between her native Lithuanian and English, combining critical theory with a disembodied voice lamenting upon the loss of its identity through its displacement and perpetual reproduction.

Swallower of Shades was presented at Palekaitė’s exhibition Serpentine Spine at Västerås Art Museum, Aguéli Museum in Sala (SWE), Vartai Gallery in Vilnius and Beursschouwburg in Brussels.

ANTHROPOMORPHIC TROUBLE

Goda Palekaitė & Adrijana Gvozdenović (17min), 2021

Exhibited at Whitechapel Gallery in London, Nemuno 7 in Kaunas, Tranzit Bratislava and Art Vilnius’22

This film is the artists’ encounter with dead and alive animals and plants as a mode of contemplation, where the camera functions like a mirror of the gaze that creates an “abyss of un-comprehension”. In relation to our shared trouble 一 anthropomorphic, anthropocentric, anthropophilic predicament 一 one thing we can do is to rethink what humans and non-humans, as well as the political and historical relationship between them might be, working with localities and correlations, learning through what is near. The film was produced in collaboration with artist and editor Teresa Cos.

Artistic research project Anthropomorphic Trouble was initiated by Goda Palekaitė and joined by Adrijana Gvozdenović. It was curated by Arts Catalyst in partnership with Delfina Foundation, and was first presented as a book, this video and an installation, activated in a performance at Whitechapel Gallery, London, in November 2021.

i write while disappearing

Goda Palekaitė (17min), 2021

Exhibited at Editorial Vilnius, Kunsthal Gent, Georg Kargl Fine Arts in Vienna and Beletage, Zürich

I Write while Disappearing is based on found television interviews which serve for the artist to create a fictional discussion between herself and 14 female writers. French feminists find themselves in conversation with a Brazilian mystic, an Austrian dramatist, a Soviet-Lithuanian romantic, and a number of others, in an intimate sharing of what it means to be a woman and an artist. Meanwhile, the author’s own voice pierces through: ‘If I steal does it mean that I write?' The film was created in collaboration with editor Rui Calvo and composer Adomas Palekas.

BIOGRAPHIC DISOBEDIENCE

Goda Palekaitė (10min), 2020

Exhibited at Editorial Vilnius, Kunsthal Gent, Vilnius International Theatre Festival Sirenos, Tour à Plomb in Brussels

Biographic Disobedience was filmed at Kunsthal Gent - a contemporary art space established in a 14th-century Carmelite monastery. There, a Christian Saint, played by Caterina Mora, recounts her mystical erotic encounters with Jesus Christ. The film was conceived as part of a larger project, The Strongest Muscle in the Human Body is the Tongue, which artist Goda Palekaitė conducted as the associate researcher of The Institute of Things to Come. It was produced in collaboration with Caterina Mora, editor Rui Calvo, sound artist Adomas Palekas, and curator Valerio Del Baglivo.

ELINORA’S DREAM

Goda Palekaitė & Elinora Schwartz (14min), 2018

Exhibited at RawArt Gallery in Tel Aviv, Art Cube Artists’ Studios in Jerusalem, Vilnius Film Festival Kino pasavaris

The video work was made during Goda Palekaitė's stay in Jerusalem, in collaboration with the local artist Elinora Schwartz. It was conceived as a part of Palekaitė’s project and solo show Legal Implications of a Dream exhibited at ArtCube Artists' Studios in Jerusalem and RawArt Gallery in Tel Aviv (curator Leah Abir). The video pictures artist Elinora Schwartz, a member of the Jewish ultra-orthodox community whose artistic practice works parallel and in relation to this affiliation. In this work, Schwartz is seen recounting several dreams, which reveal different tales and accounts: match-making, marriage, child abuse, and sexual coercion of women. Video clips are projected over Schwartz's sleep-talking body – clips that the two artists shot in various communal spaces in the ultra-orthodox neighborhoods of Jerusalem.