Baltic logs are cross-media research processes, looking at de-forestation of the woodlands for military purposes that started in 1930 and it continues today. It is designed destruction of Lithuanian forests were within its own ecosystems trees are growing, falling and growing up again without the need for human interactions.

“It doesn’t matter where you live, in your genes, there’s still the forest” – Mindaugas Survila, director of the film The Ancient Woods (Sengire in Lithuanian).

Between humans and trees, there is an unproportioned exercise of power. Humans are exploiting trees and there is no equal material exchange of each other’s bodies. There are flesh and blood against wood cells and water. Cutting down the forests is also cutting down the living habitat of plant and animal species.

During the virtual journey of ten days, the creative team Un-war Space Lab will inhabit in the form of mediatic space and document the past and present of destroyed woodlands in different locations in Lithuania. The aim is to trace the creation of new ecosystems for construction of the military landscapes or bomb’s testing in the Soviet time as was the case of Rūdininkų wood (Rūdininkų giria) where sand dunes have been formed as a consequence of military pilots bombing training and constant fires in the area.

CREATIVE TEAM

Un-War Space Lab: Armina Pilav, Damir Ugljen, Karla Crnčević, Jonas Langbein in collaboration with Ilona Jurkonytė

Un-war space lab is a cross-media research-based practice on transformations of rivers, woods, land, architecture, interspecies society during and after the wartime lead by Armina Pilav, a researcher in ecologies of war transformation. Damir is an independent researcher in fields of archaeology, social anthropology, and spatial inquiry. Karla is a dramaturge and film worker exploring the politics of moving images and the creation of the experimental media space. Jonas is an architect, working on other forms of human cohabitation through architectural projects about inclusion, communication, care, more-than-human relations, and living-together.

Un-war Space Lab team in the digital research process will be joined by Ilona Jurkonytė Lithuania born film, and moving image researcher and curator.

Presentation of the research and film preview will take place on September 4th (Friday), at 8 PM, at Patiltė (open terrace under Liubartas bridge) in Vilnius. 

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Building Narratives is a part of the Future Architecture platform and European Architecture programme 2020, co-funded by the Creative Europe Programme of the European Union and a strategic partner Lithuanian Council for Culture.