The strong aesthetic photographic language of the series leads one towards understanding of the proposed formulas of happiness in Lithuania through archetypes, symbols and metaphors. The consciously constructed image, centered composition solutions and direct confrontation with the subject paradoxically create the impression of an encounter with an irrefutable fact. The fact that what we see in Mindaugas Azusilis’s project is the Bible of Lithuanian happiness. Yet this collection of images rather than texts is more of a rejection of what we understand as a happy life today, having lost awareness of reality. Our shallow attitude towards everything around us often seamlessly masks our everyday anxiety, yet the “happinesses” that the young artist’s photographs capture reveal themselves in all their naked material beauty here.
The need for happiness is very individual, yet here and now I feel tempted to address the feeling of being coerced, the duty to be happy. And although the need for happiness is programmed in each of us, the society and its value orientations inevitably influence its form and intensity. In the age of the construction and satisfaction of desires, the fear of being unhappy is probably the biggest obstacle to feeling happy, while the antonym of happiness has become the synonym of abnormality.
Happiness in Lithuania is a photographic typology of happiness, which lays bare banality, vanity, and the fact that we are content with the mere outward image of happiness. Although it contains a hint of irony, this project goes beyond national borders and calls for supporting the politics associated with the ethics of unwillingness. Paraphrased and recontextualised, the famous Frenchman Stéphane Hessel’s phrase “to create is to resist, to resist is to create” seems to inform the paradoxical determination to resist the imposed concept of happiness, which is precisely the essence of Mindaugas Azusilis’s work.
— Egle Deltuvaite
Award winnerHappiness in LithuaniaMindaugas Azusilis created a wry and witty visual collage of how people in his own country take unusual measures in their daily lives as they try to experience that ever-elusive emotion, happiness.View Images
Award winner
Happiness in Lithuania
Mindaugas Azusilis created a wry and witty visual collage of how people in his own country take unusual measures in their daily lives as they try to experience that ever-elusive emotion, happiness.
Happiness in Lithuania
Mindaugas Azusilis created a wry and witty visual collage of how people in his own country take unusual measures in their daily lives as they try to experience that ever-elusive emotion, happiness.
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Announcing the 2018 LensCulture Black & White Photography Award Winners!
We are thrilled to announce the winners of LensCulture’s first ever Black & White Photography Awards! Discover 39 incredible artists who are creating monochrome images across different genres and in diverse cultures worldwide.
Dreams
By reconstructing scenes and settings from her subjects’ dream journals, this photographer transports us into the unsettling dimension of nightmares and reverie.
Experimental Relationship
Pixy Liao started using her boyfriend as a “prop” in her photos, but that evolved into an ongoing 12-year project documenting their unconventional relationship, resulting in some eye-opening images.
Photographing Judy Zhu
Across nearly a decade’s worth of candid imagery, this photographer created a melancholic story of what it means to be a modern woman.
American Bedroom
Travelling through the US one bedroom at a time, Barbara Peacock gives us an intimate glimpse of the American experience.
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Winners, Single Image Category: 2014 LensCulture Portrait Awards
See the winning images, and read statements by all of the winning photographers in this category.
Shipbreaking
Shipbreaking is a controversial industry. The recycling of these old vessels is often consigned to scrapyards in India, Bangladesh, or Pakistan, where salary, health, safety and working standards are minimal, and workers are desperate for work.
STAGE: Taiwanese Transformer Trucks
Shen Chao-Liang has documented the dazzling “transformer-style” traveling stage trucks used by all kinds of performers throughout Taiwan. The elaborate stages on wheels are giant, gaudy, glowing structures that travel virtually...
Dead Eagle Trail: Inside the Life of Cowboys
Off their horses and away from the John Wayne memorabilia, cowboys will reveal a passionate yet softer side of themselves. These portraits capture what remains of a still proud, deeply American, way of life.
Nobody Important, No One Else
Growing up, moving on, and grappling with change—“When I meet my old friends, I suddenly see very clearly the changes that happened inside of us, the transformations, the quiet and subtle movements of the tectonic plates within ourselves…”