Joint Exhibition “Klaipeda sehen” at the OFF FOTO Photography Festival

Klaipėda County Public Library’s exhibition curator and art historian, Danguolė Ruškienė, in collaboration with curator Thomas Schirmböck, presented a joint exhibition titled “Klaipeda sehen” at the OFF FOTO photography festival in Mannheim, Germany. The exhibition featured works by artists from Klaipėda: Arūnė Baronaitė, Joranas Bružinskas, and Paulius Makauskas. This marks the first participation of Klaipėda-based artists in the OFF FOTO festival.

The Lithuanian exhibition opened the festival together with the international group exhibition “Koexistenz”, which showcased works by Nikita Teryoshin, Sibylle Fendt, Aslı Özdemir, Erik Irmer, and Jonathan Funk, at the Stadthaus (City Hall) in Mannheim. During the opening, Danguolė Ruškienė also delivered a presentation on exhibition spaces in Klaipėda, including those dedicated to emerging artists at the library – the Niche Gallery and the White Gallery.

The Klaipėda-based artists showcased in Mannheim are relatively new to the field of photography. What unites their creative efforts is a shared focus on urgent global and local issues such as climate change, ecology, and sustainability. Arūnė Baronaitė photographs ancient forests and woodlands under threat of deforestation, using moss in her photo development process. Paulius Makauskas captures microplastics in the Baltic Sea, producing visually decorative images that sharply contrast with their alarming message about the harm these particles cause to marine life.

All three artists presented handcrafted, analog photography, created using traditional photographic techniques. Their use of these archaic methods highlights the relevance of the environmental issues they address and reinforces the importance of the message over medium.

Festival Directors: Miriam Stanke & Arthur Bauer 
Photos by: Elisa Berdica and others