Perpetuum Creatrix: Women’s Lines

From 4 September to 4 October 2025, the Vilnius Graphic Art Centre gallery ‘Kairė-dešinė’ will host an exhibition titled ‘Perpetuum Creatrix: Women’s Lines’. Participating artist: Agnė Gintalaitė, Alfreda Venslovaitė-Gintalienė, Miglė Vilčiauskaitė-Migloko, Andrėja Vilčiauskaitė, Birutė Zokaitytė.

The opening will take place on 4 September 2025 (Thursday), 6 pm.

Perpetuum Creatrix combines perpetuum (“eternal”) and creatrix – the feminine form of “creator” that has been historically marginalized and has almost fallen out of use. Thus, Perpetuum Creatrix can be translated as “eternal creatress” or “uninterrupted creative power in feminine form”. This combination of words indicates that creativity is not a random act or professional choice; rather, it is a practical existential way of being in the world, passed down from generation to generation.

The exhibition explores how the ties between one family’s women shape their artisting identity.

Drawing on anthropologist Tim Ingold’s Lines: A Brief History (2007), the exhibition envisions connections between women not just as bloodlines and kinship, but also as a way of being that is passed down through generations. Ingold argues that lines not only indicate ties, but also define how we experience and perceive the world. Artistic practice here is no longer a profession or individual expression, but an existential necessity, a family tradition, a way of thinking, acting, solving problems, or celebrating. Creative practice becomes a line that structures the lived world.

The pieces that make up the exhibition emerge as the artists leaf through the family photo album and watch the video archive, in which everyday life intertwines with documentation of exhibitions and artworks. Girls and women become the protagonists and storytellers. Although theory posits the female gaze as a more democratic alternative to the male one, here it is employed with humour and (self-)irony to construct an opposition. Individuality stems from a complicated relationship with the Other. These are not necessarily specific subjects; otherness is also represented by patriarchal social norms, power mechanisms, and repressive structures entrenched in the domestic realm, symbolized by the wolf, a shadow that introduces a whole spectrum of mythological semantics into the narrative. The iconography of everyday life eliminates the aspect of the struggle between good and evil – the nuances of meaning change in the tale of Little Red Riding Hood, but the recurrence of the archetype is inevitable.

* The exhibition is part of the Vilnius Gallery Weekend program.  

Programme:

September 13, September 14, 1 pm.: guided tour in the exhibition with artists.

September 19, 7 pm.: Vocal workshop with Migloko

October 3, 7 pm.: Presentation of Migloko’s new music album “Ievos obuoliai”