September residents – Monika Jagusinskytė and Penelope Volinia

Monika Jagusinskytė (b. 1995) is an artist based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Using photography, video and text, the artist captures the human body in everyday life, its constant change in relation to its environment. Her compositions are like phases of weightlessness, blurring the line between reality and dream, beauty and decay. In 2021, she graduated from the Amsterdam Fashion Institute (AMFI) with a Bachelor’s degree in Fashion and Technology. These studies greatly influenced her further work. The fusion of fashion and art is reflected in the artist’s choice of details, materials and textures, with garments and objects creating not only an aesthetic but also a symbolic and historical narrative. Monika’s practice is also shaped by themes of care and domesticity, often drawing on Lithuanian food and folklore as forms of collective memory.

Penelope Volinia is a creative practitioner with a curious soul for ethnobotany and handcrafts. Originally from Ferrara (IT), she studied and worked around Europe, living in small and big cities between the Netherlands and Lithuania. She is now thriving in the south of Germany where she brings her best as a PhD Researcher at the University of Augsburg, working with “Off the Menu: Appetites, Culture, and Environment” research group. Although she is currently diving deep into the (culinary) Blue Humanities, her education spans from food and graphic design (BA in Graphic Design and Communication, IUAV) to ethnobotany and food studies (MA in Food Innovation and Management, UNISG). Since 2023 she has been part of Spontaneus Lab, a gastronomic research project that investigates botanical and microbial entanglements by activating convivial learning and experience-based processes.

Photo by Zoé Nétillard-Gardey