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AGENTS
Video, color, sound; 14’ 57 ‘‘ ———> watch
Video commissioned for “Roots to Routes,” curated by Juste Kostikovaite, Maija Rudovska and Merilin Talumaa, with the support of the Baltic Culture Fund.
2020
Installation view at the group exhibition curated by Dina Akhmadeeva and Adomas Narkevičius, Centre for Contemporary Art FUTURA in Prague, 2021. Artists: Vytenis Burokas, Tarek Lakhrissi, Maria Loboda, Liv Preston, Anastasia Sosunova, Alexandra Sukhareva, Virgilijus Šonta. Agents installation was made in collaboration with Gintaras Černius.
Photos: Jan Kolsky
Of all these techniques, perhaps the “softest” and most aestheticized (and yet still brutal) is the production of a monumental marker, which inscribes a dominant cultural narrative in urban space through the sculptural reproduction of some bodies — and not others.
Paul B. Preciado
Agents is a moving image work which was created during the spring of 2020, contemplating on the folk art history and observing the effect of strict quarantine measures on people and their creativity. Revisiting and filming the sites with public sculpture made in traditional wood crafting motifs of her region, Sosunova notices how forests and parks are gradually filled with spontaneous vernacular art and temporary structures by its visitors. Investigating the agency behind the folk art revival and the vernacular creativity, the protagonist of the video initiates a dialogue with a wood artisan to express suspicions and learn what lies behind their intentions to reproduce ethnic art imagery and myths. As the conversation unfolds on whether the agency may be distributed around a host of artefacts enrolled in the realisation of our original intentions, the two in the car wait for an ‘agent’ to be sighted in the flesh and action.
(The dialogue with wood artisan Gintaras Černius was scripted and edited for artistic purposes)