Indrė Šerpytytė, From. Between. To, Vartai, 2019. Foto Galerija Vartai

Indrė Šerpytytė (born 1983) employs archival, film, and audio material and treats these media of documentation as means of expression for emotional and ancestral memory, as she works with installation, performance, textile, video, and photography. In her work, she explores issues of history, shared humanity, and trauma. By using specific cases linked to World War II, the Cold War, the decades of Soviet occupation, or even the Syrian conflict, she questions how the past affects the present and how the political influences the personal. 

The series ‘1944-1991’ (since 2009) depicts buildings in Lithuania that were used by the Soviet secret services, including the KGBORN From declassified government records, Šerpytytė developed an archive of the buildings and photographed them in their original location. Later, she gave the photographs to a traditional woodcarver and then photographed his carved models of these buildings in black and white. The cold and ascetic presentation of the resulting images and these several steps of mediation create the possibility of bypassing the initial traumatic shock and actualizing one’s authentic relationship with a historical object in the present. 

The ‘Pedestal’ (2016) series compares the past and the present by juxtaposing archival images of statues of Lenin and Stalin, once situated in grand public spaces, with their current state in an “ostalgie” culture park. It also analyses aspects of historical bullying and decontextualization. Šerpytytė’s work explores other globally recognizable locations of trauma and their representation in media. Focusing on 9/11, the Syrian conflict, and ISIS propaganda clips, she analyzes the aesthetics of these heavily mediatized events as an essential aspect through which we recognize these historical tragedies as viewers. 

Indrė Šerpytytė studied at the University of Brighton and the Royal College of Art in London. Her works have been exhibited at the 1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA, 2018) and the 11th Kaunas Biennial (2017); in solo exhibitions at the Contemporary Art Centre and Vartai Gallery in Vilnius, Still House Group in New York, the Museum of Contemporary Art in Kraków, special Block Universe project at the 58th Venice Biennale, Ffotogallery in Cardiff, and the Association of Photographers in London. She has been invited to participate in group exhibitions at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, Tate Modern in London, Imperial War Museum in London, Museum Folkwang in Essen, and the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius. 

www.indre-serpytyte.co