Shifts in the perception of present day-world security explored by a contemporary art show at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art

Exhibition opening on Thursday, 28 May at 6 pm, 2026

Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA) opens an exhibition of contemporary art ‘Boundaries of (In)Security’. The event brings into focus the increasingly obliterating concepts of all kinds of boundaries – geographical, meteorological, and national, and their connection to the digital reality and biological world.

 

“The theme of predatory aggression and the complexity of global megastructures have weighed on my mind for a while. Sadly, war is in its fifth year. russia keeps devasting the land of Ukraine, while the front line stretches not only across the territories and the sky – it creeps into TV, radio, social media and other forms of digital reality. Weather forecasts are part of daily life, yet grasping the depth of climate crisis on a more global scale is still a difficult task for the human mind. Some places continually suffer from climate disasters, but the impact of “bad weather” is not something to be assessed adequately, because the information flow is fragmentary and interrupted,” the exhibition curator Skaidra Trilupaitytė talks of the concerns that gave rise to the idea of the event.

 

“Not a big one, but a highly comprehensive exhibition features work by contemporary artists unpacking a diversity of viewpoints on the shifts in the perception of security in contemporary world. At the same time, it enters  into a dialogue with the other exhibitions currently running at the Radvila Palace. On show are the sculptures by Mindaugas Navakas, and a retrospective of the Kharkiv Photography School. Both are marked by the signs of war and pursue the themes of control by power structures and the fracturing of geopolitical plates,” Justina Augustytė, director of the museum, places the event into context.

 

 

Reflection on the consequences of geopolitical conflicts

 

Artists on display are new media artist Mindaugas Gapševičius, video, installation and performance artist Kristina Inčiūraitė, sculptor and interdisciplinary artist Matas Janušonis, and animation director Margarita Valionytė. Included are also video conversations by the culture policy researcher Skaidra Trilupaitytė and video artist Tomas Andrijauskas. They talk to a female pilot, an expert of international relations, and to climate researchers.

 

The participating artists reflect on the situation of the state boundaries and air space, climate change, the devastation of the infrastructures of observation and surveillance, and of electricity supply – approaching these issues in terms of inner and external security and potential threats. They invite to contemplate the present-day perception of territory, connection and security, when boundaries are drawn not only on maps, but across the flow of information, atmosphere, and the human body.

 

The exhibition ‘Boundaries of In(Security)’ works across the fields of history, media culture, science and political imagination. The subject matter of territory, control, and invisible boundaries are presented in the context of war, technologies and human connection to the environment. The artists articulate their deep concern with the consequences of geopolitical conflicts, emotional fatigue from information overload, and inadequacy to respond to the incessantly circulating images of violence. 

 

 

Artists’ response to aggression – production of personal energy and battling the aggressor’s influence

 

Some of the works on display have been produced in response to the 2022 russian aggression, the earlier ones have acquired a new resonance with the changing geopolitical context. The full-scale invasion prompted a deeply felt sympathy by the artists captured in their works. They may not have experienced the reality of the front line, but today they reflect on the overpowering emotions of the moment – emotions of shock, anger, sorrow. Margarita Valionytė’s animation references the shock and deep dismay at our inability to somehow influence the reality we see on social media. The expert of international relationships in one of the video conversations by Trilupaitytė and Andrijauskas raises the question of the validity of the metaphor of the ‘NATO shield’ in the ongoing drone war. The attacks against energy infrastructure in different countries make us look for ways to produce ‘personal energy’, one such is proposed by the artist Gapševičius in his piece.

 

According to the curator Trilupaitytė, the issue of the russian soft power and its influence on culture in the countries of the European Union, as illustrated by the recent much-discussed Venice Biennial example, calls for serious consideration. The soft aggressor’s influence and toxic emotions on the lips of influencers or even a curator are evoked in the piece by Inčiūraitė – a work on a former female spy, leading a security prison, cosmic surveillance station and celestial phantoms – created ten years ago and recently updated.

 

On Thursday 4 June, at 6 pm, exhibition is accompanied by a discussion with the participating artists and experts. The ‘Boundaries of (In)Security’ will run at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art until 20 September.    

 

 

Curator: Skaidra Trilupaitytė

Artists: Mindaugas Gapševičius, Kristina Inčiūraitė, Matas Janušonis, Skaidra Trilupaitytė & Tomas Andrijauskas, Margarita Valionytė

Architect: Sigita Simona Paplauskaitė

Graphic designer: Marek Voida

Coordinator: Nojus Kiznis

Producing architect: Aleksandras Kavaliauskas

Translator: Raminta Bumbulytė

Organiser: The Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the LNMA

Project financed by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania

 

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Radvila Palace Museum of Art,
24 Vilniaus st, LT-01402, Vilnius, Lithuania
+370 5 250 5824

See also

Exhibition

Boundaries of (In)Security