Emalin
LISTE 2018

Augustas Serapinas’ practice operates outside of the conventional artist studio and often takes the shape of site-specific installations, architectural interventions and performative actions. At stake is the reimagining and restructuring of socially engaged spaces in order to highlight and complicate the assumptions that precede them.

At LISTE, Serapinas presents a group of sculptures comprised of tinted
windows and deconstructed building fragments. These works reanimate the forgotten and dilapidated Vienkiemis: outlying privately-owned sheds built in the 1920–30s, found across rural parts of Lithuania. Since joining the EU in 2004, Lithuania has experienced a continuous stream of ever larger segments of the population emigrating to Western European countries or urban centres in pursuit of economic opportunities. As a result, numerous Vienkiemis that until recently still served a multitude of purposes for local families – residential, agricultural or as storage – have since deteriorated as a result of disuse. Threatened by gradual decomposition or demolition, Serapinas acquired three disappearing simple-roofed structures. Collaborating with local workers skilled in glass work, the last window reflections of the surroundings were reproduced on the disassembled windowpanes by way of glass staining.

Augustas Serapinas (b. 1990 in Vilnius, Lithuania. Lives and works in Vilnius) studied at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Exhibitions include ‘Blue Pen’, David Dale Gallery (Glasgow, UK. 2018); ‘Give Up The Ghost’, Baltic Triennial 13 (Vilnius, LT; Tallinn, EE; Riga, LV. 2018); ‘Everything Was Forever, Until it Was No More’, RIBOCA1 Riga Biennial of Contemporary Art (Riga, LV. 2018); ‘How To Live Together’, Kunsthalle Wien (Vienna, AT. 2017); ‘Housewarming’, Emalin (London, UK. 2016); 6th Moscow Biennale of Contemporary Art, (Moscow, RU. 2015).