The exhibition brings together two video works made by artist and filmmaker Simona Žemaitytė. Made in pre-pandemic Paris and post-pandemic London, the films explore human fantasies, suspension of natural attitudes and what it actually means to be inside of one's own life project. On screen the stories are told through movements and conversational fragments, while bodies become landscapes of both - lived experiences and imagination.

Lovebinge is an urban black box opera on love, intimacy and diversity. The video was filmed after the first pandemic wave, in summer of 2021 in London. The film looks into possibilities to tell stories on screen in an embodied way, bringing in the corporeal aspect of the subjectivities of the performers. In the film, five people take us through their journeys with infatuation and sex, avoidant and addictive behaviors. Gently held by a composer Uran Apak and a choreographer Tania Soubry through movement, conversations and musical improvisation, they look into their vulnerabilities and celebrate diversity.

Still life is a film workshopped and shot in pre-pandemic Paris, together with Jacques Lecoq physical theater actors. This project was carried out in the context of Simona Žemaitytė's PhD art research Death, Dying and Imagination. It uses various ideas drawn from patient-centered palliative care literature, and conceptualizes death as a form of transition, a process rather than an event. Glory is a researcher in the near future, who is carrying out interviews with immortal humans. She wants to know about the glitches of the human immortality project. Turns out that immortal humans in her project have all remained stuck in different stages of dying.

Simona Žemaitytė (1984) is a Lithuanian artist-filmmaker. She holds a practice-based PhD in arts from Vilnius Academy of Arts. Selected festivals and exhibitions: Oberhausen Short Film Festival, Kaunas Biennial (Kaunas), gallery "Meno Parkas" (Kaunas), gallery "Centrala" (Birmingham), gallery "Kasa" (Istanbul), gallery "Galata Perform" (Istanbul), Contemporary Art Center (Vilnius), etc.

Organiser: National Gallery of Art, Lithuanian National Museum of Art

Project is financed by LATGA, Lithuanian Film Center, Lithuanian Culture Council

Sponsor: Gallerie Meno parkas