Chinese magic mirror is an ancient form of art, when one side of a bronze plate is polished so much that it becomes a mirror, and the other one is carved. When bright sunlight or other bright light reflects onto the mirror, it seems to become transparent, and if that light is reflected from the mirror towards a wall, the pattern on the back of the mirror is then projected onto the wall. These magical qualities of a mirror and a photo lens have become a metaphor for this exhibition, pointing towards the mutual relationship between the view and the memory.<\/p>\n
How do we remember Kaunas? How did Kaunas of the Interwar or the Soviet period appears in our memory? What is the imagery associated with it? Are our memories authentic and related to our experiences? Maybe they are suggested by the old city photos, pictures seen in newspapers, albums or the Internet?<\/p>\n
In this exhibition, we try to reveal, how Kaunas is \u201ccreated\u201d in the collective imagination: what landscapes and buildings captured in pictures have eventually become integral to the image of the city. In this exhibition, two iconic photos from different periods of time are presented. They have established the image of the city in our memory, and, to this day, for most of us, they are associated with more than Laisv\u0117s Al\u0117ja, Town Hall or Soboras, but also with the reoccurring photo angles of these places.<\/p>\n
Together we have formulated a hypothesis that these photos usually replace and serve as the memory; they encourage us to remember things that have never happened, while also creating a certain identity of the city. On the other hand, pictures are not only a nostalgic way to \u201cremember\u201d a city and its history. It is an invaluable tool that allows taking a new look at our history: how it was constructed and how it could be reconstructed. After all, city pictures, are one of the possible forms of a dialogue between the memory and history, or one of the versions of our history.<\/p>\n
In this exhibition, we ask a question: does photography construct the collective memory? Or maybe the collective memory directs the glance of a photographer?<\/p>\n
Therefore, is our memory a mirror of the past? Or maybe photography can reflect the reality of our city as a mirror?<\/p>\n
Daiva Citvarien\u0117, Curator of the Exhibition<\/p>\n
Arvydas Pak\u0161talis, Author of the Historical Texts<\/p>\n
Photos exhibited here have been collected from the Lithuanian Central State Archives, \u0160iauliai \u201cAu\u0161ra\u201d Museum, the National Museum of Lithuania, archives of the Institute of Architecture and Construction and private collections of A. Burkus, A. Juknevi\u010dius and from various photo artists.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Chinese magic mirror is an ancient form of art, when one side of a bronze plate is polished so much that it becomes a mirror, and the other one is carved. When bright sunlight or other bright light reflects onto the mirror, it seems to become transparent, and if that light is reflected from the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"global_cat":[],"routes_cat":[],"class_list":["post-1717","routes","type-routes","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n