![]() So if we use this metaphor of sociological study (although it’s not: I don’t have that education), then the whole surrounding world becomes a field where the live-action role-play is happening. They’re still in the making, like a play that is observed in real-time. The word ‘contemporary’ here plays an important role to me, because contemporary means that it is not so much about the past traditions, but about the reinvention of those. Generally speaking, it teaches me that anything can be made-up and everything can become a story, a speaking symbol or a coping ritual. ![]() Can you share a bit about this and how it shapes your practice? Exhibition ‘Diluvial Valleys’ at Swallow, curated by Vaida Stepanovaitė, 2021Īcross your work there is an interest in what you’ve termed ‘contemporary folklore’. These creatures embody Sosunova’s double-bind of folkloric fiction and sociological critique, a form of metamorphic storytelling that’s always reinventing itself. Monsters are key protagonists in Sosunova’s work, appearing as roughly-hewn 3D renderings in her videos and hyper-detailed beasts in her acid-wash engravings. Meanwhile, Sosunova’s contribution to the current Baltic Triennial 14 sees a traditional Lithuanian wood carving framing her video Agents (2020), in which faceless characters discuss identity, folklore, and the division of post-pandemic public space. Sosunova’s recent solo exhibition at Swallow, a project space located in a creative hub development in Vilnius’s old town, embodies the building’s contradictory interstitial state: piles of rubble and burnt-out Covid-era taxi screens meld with sculptural bread swimming in resin. ![]() Folkloric rituals meet the accelerated capitalism of a post-Soviet, Westward-gazing Lithuania to explore its embodied tensions. Her work sutures together unlikely companions, bridging the occult with the mainstream, religion with secularity. This vision is complete with monsters, ritual and magical thinking, ranging from the sudden enclave of a new-build high-rise, to the psychic draw of a temporary tattoo caked in dirt. ![]() Vilnius-based artist Anastasia Sosunova’s practice moves across media to conjure contemporary folklore, merging Lithuanian mysticism with gated community gossip, scavenging salvaged rubble and subverting Slavic wedding bread. ![]()
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