DEVICES FOR ACTION – dossier: Gediminas and Nomeda Urbonas

DEVICES FOR ACTION MACBA, Barcelona, 2008

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The work of Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas takes the form of projects in which they explore the conflicts contradictions thrown up by the new economic, social and political conditions in the former Soviet countries as they affect everyday life, management of public spaces and the idea of the nation. This exhibition features five installations, the results from their work over the last eight years: Transaction (2000-2004), Ruta Remake (2002-2004), Druzba (2003-ongoing), pro-test lab archive (2005-ongoing) and Villa Lituania (2007).

TRANSACTION (2000-2004)

series of women interviews, psychiatrists session, film archive, voice archive, notebook. ww.transaction.lt

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The Victim Dress
The reconstruction of a dress that partisan Maryte wears in the scene of execution in the first Lithuanian cult movie ‘Maryte’, a paradigmatic film from a series „about Soviet Saints” (1947).
In the film heroine Maryte is shot by nazis and sacrifices her life in the name of ideals. The bullets fussilading the dress create a polka-dot pattern that later according to the participants of Transaction project „becomes a metaphor of perpetual femininity”.

„We can find a lot of Lithuanian movies in which characters are young, naive girls,making their first steps toward adult life, facing the reality of the girl as a perpetual victim, because she can’t make independent decisions. Such girl is a model of an ideal woman: a girl who hasn’t developed her own feelings or individual attitude toward things. In other words, the world, which belongs to men, has to shape her, according to its laws”. From the interview with Zivile Pipinyte, film critic.

The orginal dress was lost during the privatisation of Lithuanian Film Studios archives in 2005. Fictional reconstruction is made by Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas in collaboration with fashion designer Sandra Straukaite
Nabuk, silk, size 38, 2008


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KARAOKE (2001)

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Ruta Remake (2002-2004)

Voice archive, Theramidi Table, Light System, Sound System, Sign System, Lightbox, performance (video), Curtain, Fashion collection

Sound composition Maik Maier (Jens Neumaier & Maik Alemany)
Programing David Beltran
Performance (video) Guoda Gedvilaite
VoiceArchive Mixing Workshop (audio): Otto Kränzler, Laura Aurylaite, Giedre Gaizauskaite, Ugne Giedraityte, Juste Janulyte, Laima Jedenkute, Egidija Medeiksaite, Erika Siekstelyte, Ruta Vitkauskaite
Camouflage pattern, Fashion collection in collaboration with Sandra Straukaite

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Discussing Western and Eastern political norms and exercising the Baltxploitation phenomenon, the design sprouts as Ruta camouflage pattern, developing a remix of the Ruta headscarf motif discovered on the weaving factory film footage and models of militant fashion with a bitter taste.

A limited edition of headscarves, developed into a collection of unisex clothes made in pure linen fabric and distributed at the Ruta Remake online fashion kiosk
www.vilma.cc/ruta_remake

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VILLA LITUANIA (2007)

Installation, series of films and video-performances, pigeon race, crystal trophies, posters, fashion collection, pins, book
http://www.villalituania.lt/