Shortlisted for the 18th Festival’s Southern Panoramas show, the Lithuanian artist presents his Father’s Footsteps video, based on a trip he took with his father – deported to Siberia as a child during the Soviet invasion in his country –, where they retraced the paths travelled by his family during the forced exile. He tells of how the Russian mining industry has erased traces of the region’s cruel past to create artificial landscapes of manipulated river courses and sumptuous fake mountains, erected by the Russian government to prevent the retrieval of history. Along the way, he reveals his father’s reactions as he visits his old homes. He also talks about other projects of his, such as workshops where he discusses issues relating to time in narratives, research on corporeal interaction between audience and artwork, and the collecting of information on the Lithuanian Diaspora around the world.
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