On Friday, June 19, at 5:30 p.m., the “Daržas” Gallery at the Klaipėda Faculty of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (18 Daržų St., Klaipėda), Donatas Stankevičius’s exhibition “Legendary Past” will open. The exhibition features a series of photographs of the same name—a visual narrative about a generation that came of age during a time of systemic upheaval in Lithuania. The photographs meticulously recreate everyday life at the end of the 1980s and the beginning of the 1990s.
A series that began in 2019 as a master’s thesis project at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. It is an attempt to address the theme of memory through artistic means and to address the lack of high-quality images of everyday life from the turn of the 1980s and 1990s in Lithuania—images that are essential for visual anthropologists.
In 2024, the artist’s works were exhibited in France—in Les Mesnuls, Royan, Berck-sur-Mer, and Amiens; the exhibitions were later shown at the Prospekto Photography Gallery in Vilnius and the Museum of Photography in Šiauliai. The exhibition will run in Klaipėda until August 14.
Through cinematic shots, the author reconstructs his experiences from childhood, adolescence, and his final years of school, as well as the people he met and the situations he encountered. Here, authentic personal narratives become universally recognizable symbols of a bygone era—depicting toys, first skateboards, audio cassettes, chewing gum wrappers, and other artifacts of the era, bearing witness to the transition from Soviet everyday life to Western pop culture.
Looking at “Legendary Past,” one might wonder whether these are still frames from a film or photographs taken from an old family photo album. The series not only creates a nostalgic, detail-rich landscape of the era, but also encourages reflection on the connections between identity, memory, and visual culture.
Gallery hours:
Wed–Fri 12:00–18:00
Sat 12:00–16:00
Closed Sun–Tue and on national holidays
Wed–Fri 12:00–18:00
Sat 12:00–16:00
Closed Sun–Tue and on national holidays
