Miškan..

Once walking here you found your eyes would ache:
The forest would your soul so merry make,
Your heart so glad you wondered in surprise:
Where am I – in a wood or Paradise?

“The Forest of Anyksciai” by Antanas Baranauskas
(Lithuanian poetry translated by Peter Tempest)

Since the year dot Lithuania is known as a land of forests, holy woods, oak-spinneys, birch-groves, linden-coppices, where according to tales and legends rover ghosts, riverine spirits and souls of pinewoods, pixies and witches, sons and daughters of divinities were swarming. Lots of different patrons of forest are mentioned in Lithuanian folklore. People used to give them the first gathered mushroom or berry as a sacrifice. Customs based upon archaic life of picking/gathering shows human respect for Nature and harmony with the surrounding world.

Forest takes a very important part in mytology of different nations as sacred and mysterious place that gives shelter and shield. It is an unreachable for lust and desire place, a symbol of inner life and soul introvertion.

Woolen floor felted as moss, grass, shrubberies, leaves and needles repeating rich flora of woods, uncanny pattern of forest paths are created as the center of unfailing semantic might, where symbols and signs of different times and civilizations meet. A possibility to move on different ways, take an individual wander through symbolic course of forest invites every spectator to experience and meditate on visual projections. The art installation as contraposition to destructive industry of nowadays aspires to harmonize the relation between contemporary human and nature.

The work of art “Miškan..” is every time spontaneously adjusted to expositional spaces – the ground layer forest is put together from multiple felted elements in different ways, and the whole of the work is organized anew.

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