The Resort (I), (II)
Photographs, graphic, 2007-2008
The photographs document the abandoned places of the largest and most popular Lithuanian resort of Druskininkai: the burned-down Voveraite cinema theatre, the Karolis Dineika recreation park and the kitchen premises of the Nemunas sanatorium. These places are evocative symbols of mismanagement – once popular sights that have become a kind of hell set against the beautiful background of the resort. This project seeks to draw attention to the inadequacy of commercial real estate developers in the face of social architecture.
While creating this project, I wanted to collect other people’s opinions about the future of this resort. I thought it might be interesting to talk with long-term patients. I chose one of the largest and most important children’s treatment centres – Saulute sanatorium – and asked the children undergoing treatment in this sanatorium to write down their wishes for this city and try to picture what Druskininkai will be like ten years later. Afterwards, by using the grattage technique popular among children, these notes were covered with wax and a mixture of black ink and gouache. The children’s greetings became illegible. This sheet of paper will be revealed after ten years – the layer of ink-gouache and wax will be scraped off, so that it would be possible to read the children’s wishes. Then it will become clear if the forecasts of children who themselves grew up and changed during ten years will have come true. Has the city become the way they wanted to see it in their childhood? (K.I.)
Artist's Bio:
Kristina Incuraitė is a visual artist, working in various media - video, photograpgy, installations and sound works, etc. „In artworks by Kristina Inciuraite we see static images that imply a kind of social paralysis, suspense, and expulsion. A stage that metonymically depicts the representational stage itself always remains empty or, to put it more exactly, is consciously emptied out. On the socio-political level it can be related to the changes of economic formations - places, important in the period of socialism, have now become either abandoned, or have been appropriated by different aesthetics or ideology.” (Audrone Zukauskaite in catalogue Scenos/ Stages 2002-2005)