Photo by G.Trimakas

Agnė Narušytė -  research fellow at Vilnius University, art critic, editor of photography column at the cultural weekly 7 meno dienos, a member of the Lithuanian Council for Culture and the International Association of Art Critics, Lithuanian Section (AICA, author of books: The Aesthetics of boredom in Lithuanian Photography (2010), Lithuanian Photography: 1990–2010 (2011), Camera obscura: The History of Lithuanian Photography 1839–1945 (together with Margarita Matulytė, 2016).

The Architecture of Lingering War in Everyday Life: Photography and the Double Time of Military Apparatus

 In 1975, Paul Virilio published a book of photographs Bunker Archaeology, inspired by the philosophy of war inherent in architectural constructions. Bunkers left by the Nazis on the French coastline visualised “the military institution” as “a cyclothymic animal hibernating during peacetime and awake for war.” This is what draws many photographers to military structures that preserve the impact of war during peacetime and linger in everyday lives of people. The presentation will discuss outstanding cases of such photography: the series World Tour by Harry Shunk and Janós Kender, Chronotopia by Simon Norfolk created in Afghanistan during a short interval of peace in 2001–2002, places of nuclear tests in Kazakhstan photographed by Ursula Schulz-Dornburg in 2012, the 2009 series (1944 – 1991) by Indrė Šerpytytė reflecting on the culture of forgetting in Lithuania and Valentyn Odnoviun’s recent series Surveillance and Horizon.