Before Leaving

The photographic series "Before Leaving" attempts to capture the present moment in the face of human change. Aware of the cyclical nature of life, the author looks at herself at the turning point of fundamental changes, trying to know herself more deeply and to say goodbye. Using scraps of gauze, K. Aleksynaitė creates a sculpture of herself. It is as if she freezes and immortalises her body under the wet texture of the material and looks from the side, asking what kind of sculpture I am today. Before capturing the final result, the artist tries to get rid of unnecessary parts of the sculpture with the help of material and water. Just as in a given space the unnecessary parts of a stone are hammered away, here the water washes away the physical data, the social limitations, the domestic issues, while at the same time exposing the essential ones - the collective memory, the markers of the sacred. K. Aleksynaitė invites us to experience the process of self-knowledge, what associations emerge after being washed and immortalised in the form of a sculpture at that moment.