Eglė Budvytytė
UB ART GALLERIES
Shot in the pine forests and sand dunes of the Curonian Spit on the Lithuanian border, Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies Imploding Stars is a hypnotic exploration of non-human forms of consciousness nested in symbiotic life: interdependence, surrender, death, and decay. The images gradually layer, alongside intimate lyrics of a song that channels the desires of an entity shapeshifting across genders, voices, and beyond-human embodiments.
The choreography’s reliance on horizontality undoes the verticality usually attributed to the human figure, unfurling her into the landscape. Although often horizontal, the performers’ bodies are sites of activity, pulled toward the earth and one another, moving through the forest, along the sand dunes and water.
Written by artist, the song lyrics draw on the work of biologist Lynn Margulis and science-fiction author Octavia Butler: the soundtrack channels Margulis in its celebration of the role of bacteria in making life and collaboration between the single-cell organisms possible; it also invokes Butler’s tropes of symbiosis, mutation, and hybridity to challenge hierarchies and categorization.
BIOGRAPHY
Based in Vilnius and Amsterdam, Eglė Budvytytė works at the intersection between visual and performing arts. She approaches movement and gesture as technologies for a possible subversion of normativity, gender and social roles, and the dominant narratives governing public spaces. Spanning song, poetry, video, and performance, her practice explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability, and the permeable relationships between bodies, audiences, and environments. Her work has been shown at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Venice Biennale (2022); Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Riga, Latvia (2020); Renaissance Society, Chicago (2018); South London Gallery, London (2018); Lofoten International Art Festival, Lofoten, Norway (2017); Block Universe Performance Festival, London (2017); Art Dubai Commissions, Dubai (2017); Liste, Art Basel (2015); 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania (2016, 2010); Stedeljik Museum, Amsterdam (2012). Eglė was resident at Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2012) and at WIELS (Brussels, 2013).
Eglė Budvytytė
UB ART GALLERIES
Shot in the pine forests and sand dunes of the Curonian Spit on the Lithuanian border, Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies Imploding Stars is a hypnotic exploration of non-human forms of consciousness nested in symbiotic life: interdependence, surrender, death, and decay. The images gradually layer, alongside intimate lyrics of a song that channels the desires of an entity shapeshifting across genders, voices, and beyond-human embodiments.
The choreography’s reliance on horizontality undoes the verticality usually attributed to the human figure, unfurling her into the landscape. Although often horizontal, the performers’ bodies are sites of activity, pulled toward the earth and one another, moving through the forest, along the sand dunes and water.
Written by artist, the song lyrics draw on the work of biologist Lynn Margulis and science-fiction author Octavia Butler: the soundtrack channels Margulis in its celebration of the role of bacteria in making life and collaboration between the single-cell organisms possible; it also invokes Butler’s tropes of symbiosis, mutation, and hybridity to challenge hierarchies and categorization.
BIOGRAPHY
Based in Vilnius and Amsterdam, Eglė Budvytytė works at the intersection between visual and performing arts. She approaches movement and gesture as technologies for a possible subversion of normativity, gender and social roles, and the dominant narratives governing public spaces. Spanning song, poetry, video, and performance, her practice explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability, and the permeable relationships between bodies, audiences, and environments. Her work has been shown at Whitechapel Gallery, London (2022); Venice Biennale (2022); Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, Riga, Latvia (2020); Renaissance Society, Chicago (2018); South London Gallery, London (2018); Lofoten International Art Festival, Lofoten, Norway (2017); Block Universe Performance Festival, London (2017); Art Dubai Commissions, Dubai (2017); Liste, Art Basel (2015); 19th Biennale of Sydney (2014); Contemporary Art Center, Vilnius, Lithuania (2016, 2010); Stedeljik Museum, Amsterdam (2012). Eglė was resident at Le Pavillon, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2012) and at WIELS (Brussels, 2013).