(part of bal’26)
Weaving personal familial memories and critical thought, this performative reading unfolds as a kind of ritual — an attempt at strengthening the social fabric, which deteriorates through cyclical violence. Thinking through various forms of property relations and dispossessions, we try to locate our agency and make space for political imagination.
Collective Dreaming is an ongoing research project that explores cross-borders connection and liberation through public programming and writing. Rooted in the post-soviet condition, it engages with questions of colonial violence and intersecting systems of power, while approaching art as a method for expanding imaginaries and collaborations.
Julija Šilytė is a curator, writer, and interdisciplinary researcher working across art history, social anthropology, and cultural practice. Her research engages with class, cultural labour, collective memory, and the post-socialist condition in Eastern Europe, with particular attention to how social tensions and uneven histories become visible, or remain unnamed, through art. She is currently pursuing an MA in History of Art at University College London (UCL) and holds a degree in Art History and Social Anthropology from the University of St Andrews. Alongside her research and curatorial work, she writes on contemporary art and culture, with texts and interviews published in Artnews.lt, Echo Gone Wrong, and MOST Magazine. She is a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association and was also involved in cultural education, working with young people on film, moving-image culture, and collective programming.
Milda Valiulytė is a cultural worker, curator and researcher. Their practice unfolds through spatial desires — horizontally across borders, social forms and epistemic categories, and vertically through pasts, presents and futures — to explore possibilities of liberation. They are currently undertaking an MA in Critical Studies at Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. Their projects have been presented with CCA Glasgow, Glasgow Short Film Festival, Meno Avilys & SODAS 2123.
Duration: 45 min.
bal’26: Dismantling the Promise
bal’26 thematic focus looks into resistance against power structures. With the title Dismantling the Promise, the program reflects on the consequences of power agreements and connections, as well as the missed opportunities for solidarity, care, and dissent when viewed from a feminist standpoint. It is an intentional look back at the power structures that constrain the autonomy of marginalised bodies and their landscapes of physical territories, social spaces, and embodied environments—turning back toward these structures, using their own tools of language, technology, and speculation against them.
bal’26 program is perceived as an exhibition which is multilayered and denies the common structure by bringing together artworks (including research presentations) in different formats that unfold over time. Exhibition Ghost Town by Paula Veidenbauma forms a constant presence, while additional works: short film (The City That Has Peace by Petra Matić), a performance (RADIO GLAS DRINE by Vildana Hermann), a performative reading by Collective Dreaming , publication presentation (Body as an Archive: Performative Art Practices in Postwar Kosova by Anyla Kabashi and Renea Begolli), bal screenings and a symposium are introduced at different moments. These function independently, yet remain in dialogue with the Ghost Town creating a shifting field of relations across the duration of the exhibition.
The selected presentations in the symposium cover problematic decisions regarding transregional via-politics of so called Baltic Sea – Black Sea – Aegean Sea Corridor stretching from the Baltics to the Balkans (Corridor Limbo by Paula Veidenbauma); investigate how weaponised digital tools are recognised and reclaimed by feminist artists (Feminist Data as Resistance: Algorithmic Bias, Bodily Autonomy, and Digital Feminist Resistance in the Post-Yugoslav Balkans by Ana Marinković), expose how city scapes and eco systems co-exist and are disrupted by political governance (Ecologisation of Architecture by Aljaž Rudolf), and explain how Aesopian language influenced the transgenerational somatic effects of repression (Aesopian language by Rūta Junevičiūtė).
A separate event of bal screenings, will invite to view three anthropological short films. Through a slow, observant lens, the film program invites into liminal spaces imbued with a sense of freedom, waiting and the passage of time. Included films are Pagirnis (dir. Anastasija Pirozenko), I Have A Song To Sing You (dir. Eluned Zoë Aiano, Alesandra Tatić, Greta Rauleac), Mother Mare (dir. Elisa Chiari).
During the opening of the exhibition, the bal’26 publication will be presented with contribution by Helena Aadli, Renea Begolli, Likana Cana, Hana Čeferin, Anton Goncharov, Vildana Hermann, Rūta Junevičiūtė, Anyla Kabashi, Kroplya, Diona Kusari, Ana Marinković, Petra Matić, Milica Popović, Justina Špeirokaitė, Saša Tatić, and Paula Veidenbauma.
Curated by Justina Špeirokaitė
Curatorial and editorial team: Merete Väin, Ajda Ana Kocutar, Lara Mejač, Urtė Špeirokaitė, Miloš Vučićević
Graphic design by René Vogelmann
Supported by BMWKMS, MA7, 15. Bezirk, Lithuanian Council for Culture, and the Lithuanian Embassy in Vienna
bal is a transdisciplinary comparative project exploring the artistic and cultural landscapes of the Baltic states and the post-Yugoslav region. Combining academic research, artistic practice, public discussion, and critical discourse, the project challenges homogenising views of Eastern Europe and foregrounds diverse identities and experiences. Through an intersectional perspective, bal examines how historical and contemporary transformations shape the lives of women and others affected by intersecting forms of marginalisation.