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Melioration
Melioracija
Jun 23 2022
The Chamber of Agriculture of the Republic of Lithuania, Kaunas
Lietuvos žemės ūkio rūmai, Kaunas
Lietuvos žemės ūkio rūmai, Kaunas
The exhibition unfolds inside the Chamber of Agriculture as a quiet intervention into a space built to organise land, productivity, and progress. The architecture draws directly from the material language of melioration: drainage pipes, reclaimed felt, and industrial textures reappear as spatial elements—bent, knotted, repurposed. These materials do not illustrate agriculture; they carry its logic, exposing how systems designed to improve and control the land also leave lasting marks.
Rather than structuring the space cleanly, the architecture behaves like an aftereffect. Pipes twist into unstable forms, surfaces soften under layers of reused felt, and the exhibition floor becomes a site of tension between order and residue. Progress is felt not as a promise, but as a material condition—something heavy, persistent, and unevenly distributed.
Set within an institution historically tied to planning and extraction, Melioration treats architecture as a mediator between landscape and ideology. The space does not resolve the contradictions of modernization; it holds them. What remains is a bodily experience of progress—tangled, sedimented, and impossible to fully drain.
Rather than structuring the space cleanly, the architecture behaves like an aftereffect. Pipes twist into unstable forms, surfaces soften under layers of reused felt, and the exhibition floor becomes a site of tension between order and residue. Progress is felt not as a promise, but as a material condition—something heavy, persistent, and unevenly distributed.
Set within an institution historically tied to planning and extraction, Melioration treats architecture as a mediator between landscape and ideology. The space does not resolve the contradictions of modernization; it holds them. What remains is a bodily experience of progress—tangled, sedimented, and impossible to fully drain.
Tangled progress: the ruins and residues of land reclamation.
Artists:
Julia Beliaeva, Mark Buckeridge, Beatrice Celli, Andrii Dostliev, Lia Dostlieva, Kipras Dubauskas,
Nazar Furyk, Ona Juciūtė, Anton Karyuk, Niamh Seana Meehan, Julija Račiūnaitė, Vytautas Stakutis
Julia Beliaeva, Mark Buckeridge, Beatrice Celli, Andrii Dostliev, Lia Dostlieva, Kipras Dubauskas,
Nazar Furyk, Ona Juciūtė, Anton Karyuk, Niamh Seana Meehan, Julija Račiūnaitė, Vytautas Stakutis
Architecture:
Gabrielė Černiavskaja
Light design:
Justas Bø
Technical support:
Karolis Bieliauskas, Arūnas Periokas
Gabrielė Černiavskaja
Light design:
Justas Bø
Technical support:
Karolis Bieliauskas, Arūnas Periokas
Curator:
Agnė Bagdžiūnaitė
Agnė Bagdžiūnaitė
Coordinator:
Brigita Bareikytė
Graphic design:
Beatričė Gruzdytė
Brigita Bareikytė
Graphic design:
Beatričė Gruzdytė