Lithuanian artists Agnė Jokšė and Anastasia Sosunova’s exhibition Dance As You Wrestle is the first major presentation of both artists’ work in the UK. As part of the commissioning process, Sosunova and Jokšė have undertaking a one month residency at Cell Studios.
New works by Anastasia Sosunova including etchings, sculptures and site-specific installations combining copper and polluted water, will trace how objects and images become ‘charged’ by analogy of a relic, contamination or electrical impulse. Her enquiry into the phenomenon of the veneration of relics focuses on the Eastern Orthodox church's entanglement with Russian minority politics in Lithuania and across the Baltics. In parallel, Agnė Jokšė's new and modified moving image installations, featuring footage of her family – Lithuanian diaspora now settled in the UK, will explore care, compassion, and love through the lens of intergenerational relations constituted in parallel to socio-political changes after the dissolution of the Soviet Union.
Dance as You Wrestle brings the artists into the close-knit format of a two person exhibition for the first time. Jokšė’s and Sosunova’s art practices share a deep affinity towards imagining queer 'Eastern' European identifications yet to come. Often through a personal lens, the artists explore stories of the past which have led to a fraught and undecided present.
Curator Adomas Narkevičius
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Agnė Jokšė (b. 1993, Vilnius, LT) lives and works between Vilnius and Copenhagen, where she recently concluded her MA degree at the Royal Danish Academy of Visual Arts. She has shown work at Editorial, Vilnius (2022); the Artists' Film International, Whitechapel Gallery, London (2021); Swallow, Vilnius (2021); Baltic Triennial 14 (2021); Mimosa House, London (2020); Publics, Helsinki (2020); NAC, Nida (2020), and Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2020). Jokšė's work 'Dear Friend,' was awarded the JCDecaux Emerging Artist Award in 2019.
Anastasia Sosunova (b. 1993, Ignalina, LT) graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts with BA in Graphic Arts and MA in Sculpture. Notable solo and two-person exhibitions have been presented at SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen (2022), Britta Rettberg, Munich; Screens Series programme, New Museum, New York; Swallow, Vilnius (2021); Kogo, Tartu (2019) and Editorial, Vilnius (2018). She has exhibited work at the National Gallery of Art, Vilnius and Kunsthalle Osnabrück (2022), Prospectif Cinéma programme at Centre Pompidou, Paris; FUTURA Contemporary Art Centre, Prague; the 14th Baltic Triennial, Vilnius (2021). Sosunova won the JCDecaux Award in 2018.
In partnership with the Lithuanian Culture Institute. Generously supported by Embassy of Lithuania in the United Kingdom and Danish Arts Foundation.
