M HKA Ensembles

Installation

Collection: Courtesy of the Artist.

The fact that ‘žiūra’ means ‘look’ in Lithuanian is perhaps not pure coincidence. In videos, photographs, installations and texts, Darius Žiūra observes, registers, formats, composes, without looking away when he sees uncomfortable or sometimes even unbearable realities. Gustoniai, named after the village in northern Lithuania where he grew up, is his longest-ongoing work to date. Beginning in 2001, he has revisited it every three years, making one-minute silent video portraits of all its inhabitants. The six films have now been recut and recomposed as a six-channel installation. Six simultaneous incarnations of the ‘same’ face as a metaphor for continuation. Black screens stand for the dead, the not-yet-born or the absent. 15 years in the life and development of a small community – growing up and growing old, leaving and returning, thriving and declining – but also of the video medium, of portraiture.