Even if it’s the end of the world: the landscape in Lithuanian photography
24 October 2025 – 1 March, 2026
Even if it’s the end of the world, humans will not be inclined to believe in the upcoming apocalypse until the very last second, and will try to suppress the fear aroused by the critical threat of complete self-destruction by focusing on far-away landscapes – where perceptible reality ends and the imagined world begins, where existential anxiety is dwarfed by the magic of infinite nature.
On the one hand, the landscape is a fabric of actual places forming the relief and horizon – the boundary of how far our eyes can see, however, the landscape is also a multifaceted stage for mental and aesthetic action – a space capable of holding many conflicting emotions and perceptions, and where interests and powers collide. Each societal formation creates its own landscape, suppressing or even destroying the values of earlier political, economic, social, cultural and ecological stages of development, replacing them with its own new ones.
For some photographers, the landscape is a social environment in which geological, mythological, historical and physical time passes, where the present unites with the past. Landscape photography helps us feel the pulse of worldviews that lingered in past time, not only reflecting the local history but also marking its relativity. Artists elevate the symbolic meanings of landscape, testing them on the value scale of their own lives or that of their epoch.
Other photographers harness the landscape (real or imagined) for the creation of new meanings. Photography, either consciously or intuitively, entrenches the landscape phenomenon – spaces in which the accumulations of meanings in societal communication are constantly changing and expanding. First to act are ideological provisions and experiences of associativity, which are fed by synthesised, “wild” or anthropogenised locations of nature and culture. Today it is artists’ references to the after-effects of the anthropocene that become especially relevant, and the future perspectives of civilisation as we know it.
It is true that the status quo of the landscape will never crystallise in the reservoirs of individual or even collective memory, because it is the result of inevitable metamorphoses of nature and imagination, unfolding in photographs like a mirage.
Margarita Matulytė
Exhibition authors:
Vytautas Balčytis (b. 1955)
Marijonas Baranauskas (1931–1995)
Algimantas Barzdžius (b. 1960)
Juozas Budraitis (b. 1940)
Alfonsas Budvytis (1949–2003)
Zenonas Bulgakovas (1939–2023)
Vitalijus Butyrinas (1947–2020)
Dovilė Dagienė (b. 1981)
Pijus Ganusauskas (b. 1989)
Savelijus Golubevas (1935–2007)
Elena Grudzinskaitė (b. 1987)
Jonas Kalvelis (1925–1987)
Kotryna Ūla Kiliulytė (b. 1986)
Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė (b. 1991)
Marius Krivičius (b. 1994)
Algimantas Kunčius (b. 1939)
Stanislovas Lukošius (1906–1997)
Paulius Makauskas (b. 1986)
Lina Margaitytė (b. 1996)
Julija Matulytė (b. 1988)
Remigijus Pačėsa (1955–2015)
Andrej Polukord (b. 1990)
Romualdas Rakauskas (1941–2021)
Liudvikas Ruikas (1938–2004)
Vaclovas Straukas (1923–2017)
Kristina Sereikaitė (b. 1980)
Virgilijus Šonta (1952–1992)
Remigijus Treigys (b. 1961)
Raimundas Urbonas (1963–1999)
Audra Vau (b. 1970)
Julijus Vaicekauskas (b. 1939)
Darius Vaičekauskas (b. 1978)
George Vaitkunas (b. 1956)
Exhibition curator dr. Margarita Matulytė
Coordinators: Skaistė Marčienė, Aurelija Malinauskaitė
Exhibition architect Ieva Glumac
Designer Marius Žalneravičius
Organiser LNDM Prano Domšaičio galerija
Project financed by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania
Media partners: LRT, „JCDecaux“, „Cgates“
Sponsor „Grigeo Group“
Partners: Kauno miesto muziejus, Lietuvos centrinis valstybės archyvas, Lietuvos fotomenininkų sąjunga, Šiaulių „Aušros“ muziejus
- Purchase an e-ticket for this exhibition
- Book a guided tour of this exhibition by phone +370 46 410 421, email domsaicio.edukacija@lndm.lt
- Plan your visit to the Pranas Domšaitis Gallery
33 Liepu st, LT-92145, Klaipėda, Lithuania
+370 46 410 412
domsaicio.galerija@lndm.lt
