What do the two Baltic Sea ports—Klaipėda and Kotka, Finland—have in common? Both cities are marked by different losses and different urban rhythms. This will be revealed in the exhibition “Gates of Noise,” which opens on September 11 at 5:30 p.m. at the Exhibition Hall of the Klaipėda Culture and Communication Center (KKKC) on Didžioji Vandens Street. 2.
In the exhibition “Gates of Noise,” the rhythm of the city, the silence of nature, and the ruins of construction and war form a space in which the experiences of urban change are encoded. Here, the sounds of the port and heavy industry—harsh, sometimes even unsettling—reveal themselves as more than mere disturbances. At times, they can become a movement and a shared rhythm, providing the impetus to bring communities together, to help them cope with loss, and to seek new ways of creating experiences in cities whose identity is unstable—and, as a result, all the more appealing.
In the city of Kotka, located in eastern Finland, the horizon is still defined by the islands of the Gulf of Finland that were lost during the Winter War. They are visible to the naked eye from Kotka, but remain out of reach. They have become relics of geopolitical imagination and personal loss. Meanwhile, in Klaipėda, the city’s community changed dramatically after World War II. The city survived, but the continuity of its experience was severed as local narratives dissipated. Later, after the end of the 1990s, the city of Klaipėda once again lost part of its population, and the mediators of alternative culture also left.
Alongside the lost landscapes of the Kotka Islands, the exhibition also offers references to Klaipėda’s former avant-garde culture and rave scene, as well as to the overall importance of the city’s soundscape in envisioning the city’s future.
For the first time, in presenting this exhibition, the KKKC is collaborating with the Museum of the History of Lithuania Minor, an institution of historical significance to the city, and on September 10 at at 6:00 p.m., part of the exhibition and a reading directed by Naubertas Jasinskas (the day before the official opening of the exhibition) will be presented at the MLMI Castle Tower. The exhibition “Gates of Noise” is curated by Justė Kostikovaitė and organized in collaboration with the Kotka City Municipality.
Participants in the exhibition: Gerda Antanaitytė, Ervinas Faktura, Tony Cokes, Krišjānis Elviks, Naubertas Jasinskas, Brigita Kasperaitė, Pipsa Lonka, Juha Metso, Thomas Nyqvist, Donatas Norušis, Jurga Sako, Dijuota Žilytė.
Curator: Justė Kostikovaitė
Architect: Brigita Kasperaitė
Coordinator: Justina Trapokaitė
Graphic Design: Ringailė Demšytė
Communication: Dora Žibaitė
Technical Implementation : Robertas Laugalys, Tomas Tarvydas, Paulius Žalostnikovas, Vytautas Kūra
The exhibition will be accompanied by a program featuring sound performances by DJ A (Ana Maslenikova/One Ear Stereo) and Donatas Norušis.
The project is funded by the Klaipėda City Municipality.
Project partners: Kotka City Municipality, Kymenlaakso Museum, Merikeskus Vellamo, Klaipėda Castle Museum, Kohta.
