METALLOphone: MEMORY OF A PLACE
30 September 2022 – 28 February 2023
This year, the 6th International Biennial of Contemporary Jewellery and Metal Art ‘METALLOphone‘ focuses on memories associated with a specific place. Every place we go to affects us and we, in turn, leave our mark on it. Cities can become cultural palimpsests, full of references and clues which we are often unable to read, but memory existing in them finds many ways to express itself, imperceptibly seeping into our consciousness. Memory is everywhere, in every place that becomes important to us, in every place that we feel connected to. The memory of a small town, a lonely homestead or a teenage room settles in the walls and the ambience, in the things left behind, in the view outside the window that we see in our dreams many years later somewhere far away. As the war is raging in Ukraine, there are more and more places that no longer exist physically and live on in memory only. The memory of a place is both a return to tradition and the use of materials peculiar to a specific place. It is also the shapes of objects or buildings that are engraved in the memory of a person, a family or even an entire generation. Local materials and important places become embodied in jewellery and in this way, stay close to our body. Places affect us, we affect places. We remember each other.
116 participating artists from 24 countries talk about places to which they return to recharge, gain strength and support. Those are warm childhood memories. Those are cities and countries that became imprinted on their memory. It is also places that are no longer there or were never there, but that exist in the imagination. The viewer is invited to use image, text and sound to find their place in the biennial, while the creators, in turn, utilise a wide range of materials and forms to tell about the places that matter to them. About places that remember us.
For the first time ever, the Biennial opens two solo exhibitions. Sigitas Virpilaitis in his exhibit ‘About a Bracelet’ tells tongue-in-cheek stories of 40 bracelets made from most uncanny materials. Catarina Hällzon at the exhibition ‘Back to My Roots’ reminds its visitors of meanings carried by forgotten materials, ancient techniques of metalsmithing as well as our roles in nature. The vast scale and variety of used materials are interconnected through a sound installation by musician and sound artist Marija Rasa Kudabaitė.
This year the Biennial opened with a performance by the curator of the 4th Biennial ‘METALLOphone: Signature’, jewellery and performance artist Emmanuel Lacoste from France.
Curator Jurgita Ludavičienė
Architect Simona Sigita Paplauskaitė
Designer Lina Bastienė
Organisers: Lithuanian National Museum of Art, gallery ‘Vilnensis’
Partner Vilnius Academy of Arts
Project is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture
Media partners: 15min, MediaTraffic, www.vilniausgalerija.lt
3A Arsenalo st, Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 212 1813;
+370 5 261 25 48; +370 5 262 80 80.
tddm@lndm.lt
