Indrė Liškauskaitė “Contact Zones”

On the 4th of May the exhibition Contact Zones by Indrė Liškauskaitė will be opened at Marcinkonys station gallery.

The term Contact Zones was developed by Mary Louise Pratt, while analyzing the European colonialism in South America. The author started using Contact Zones, as social spaces where disparate cultures meet and clash. Later the term was interpreted by Donna Haraway, as a place of transformative life experiences by comparing Pratt Contact Zones and the Contact Zones, found in dog agility sport. That led to further term development by Jessica Lussier and Claudia W. Ruitenberg, who proposed to expand the concept of the Contact Zones beyond its human boundaries to include the meeting and clashing not only of cultural systems but also of ecosystems, in order to gain a better understanding of other-than-human agencies. 

The artworks presented in the exhibition explore different Contact Zones, narrated through the artists’ personal encounters with non-human creatures and show the post-humanistic turn in the general understanding: Who is that Other we meet in the Contact Zone and how it shifts from a foreigner to a non-human Other, for example a dog or a ram. The Contact Zone becomes a tool to analyze the history of inter-species relations and companion animal histories.

Landing in the Contact Zone is not just about human and non-human creatures meeting at particular space and time, it requires responsiveness and interaction with each other, intention to sense and perceive the other being in emotional, intellectual, ethical or physical.  

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Indrė Liškauskaitė is an artist and curator based in Vilnius. She is a doctoral candidate at Vilnius Academy of Art. In her current doctoral research project “Human Behaviour” she is investigating the complexity of human and non-human (animal) relations. Her doctoral research adapts the method of playing, and through the interaction with her dogs, through the games, the sounds and the sports they play, the artist is analyzing social, cultural and philosophical influences that shaped human-animal relation in the modern history.

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The exhibition opening: 4th of May, 3 PM

The exhibition will run from 4th of May to 2nd of June, 2024

Marcinkonys Station gallery is open Saturdays and Sundays, noon–5 pm.

Address: Marcinkonys Station gallery (Kastinio g. 1C, Marcinkonys)

Organiser: Všį Verpėjos

The exhibition is supported by Lithuanian Council for Culture