Manifesta purposely strives to keep its distance from what are often seen as the dominant centres of artistic production, instead seeking fresh and fertile terrain for the mapping of a new cultural topography.
Augustas Serapinas, LT
Pew Tower. Reconfigured church benches 480 × 400 × 400 cm.
Augustas Serpinas lives and works in Vilnius, Lithuania. He recomposes public spaces and works against common assumptions about them. Through on-site research, he uncovers hidden hierarchy, economy and memory in our society that decides on how institutions function, how people interact, who they pay attention to and which objects are passed by unacknowledged. By researching the history of materials, their usage and traditions he turns secrets and access to spaces into friendly weapons. Inverting their usual functions and customs, Serapinas toys with different possibilities entering a space: pragmatically, emotionally, culturally and locally.