HGMITR (2023)

Displayed at Lelija, Tech Zity (Vilnius, Lithuania) in Dismantled Dreams: Disrupted Seams as part of Rupert AEP programme

Artist and Designer: Ella Skinner

Curator: Tautvydas Urbelis

Assistant Curators: Sunna Dagsdottir, Evita Mikalkenaite, Auguste Verikaite, Keidi Jaakson

Coordinator: Rugile Miliukaite

Production Manager: Egle Kliucinskaite

Architectural advisor: Petras Isora

Lighting Designer: Justas Bo

Technician: Matas Satunas

Press

Sleek Magazine

HGMITR is a site-specific installation created at the ex-Soviet administration building of the sewing factory, Lelija in Vilnius, Lithuania. For this project, working with architects and construction teams, artist Ella Skinner underwent a full scale architectural reconstruction of the space to create a fragmented, shrine-like environment, inspired by the Oracle of Delphi and the loss of faith and community within the internet age.

Exhibition text:

Sometimes, the girl snapped her phone off and looked at the sky. As she looked at the sky, she thought it to be the dull whites of the eyes of some ethereal dictator. Some dictator who wanted to see her squirm, who let her imprison herself. Torturing her with broken promises about the state of the cosmos. She drew up the conclusion, one night on her phone, that if she had been around when humans existed in tribes, she would have been a wise woman or a priestess. She would have been raped and burnt at the stake for her wisdom. She cursed the sky. Convinced it had a conscious she would fall back to sleep.

Multisensory installation that materials contain but are not limited to; wool, yarn, string, smoke, frankincense, objects and animal remains retrieved from a Gopnik in Latvia, rat corpse preserved in resin, wax, plaster, silicone, resin, glucose, dirt, ink, religious paraphernalia obtained from a church in Tallinn, acrylic, industrial paint, hand altered prints of a historical painting sourced from Poland.