𝗜𝗡 𝗣𝗥𝗢𝗖𝗘𝗦𝗦

“IN PROCESS” – a new (AV17) Gallery initiative dedicated to emerging sculptors entering the contemporary art scene. The platform presents projects by current students and recent graduates, highlighting individual approaches to contemporary sculpture, object-based art, and installation. Focusing on process, experimentation, and the development of new ideas, the initiative offers young artists an opportunity to introduce their work to a wider audience.

Povilas Dūda is a young-generation artist and a fourth-year student at the Department of Graphic Arts in the Vilnius Academy of Arts. In the exhibition “Obelėlė“ Gardeners Association”, the artist presents his bachelor’s degree final project. In his artistic practice, he explores printmaking as a method of investigating and documenting the environment through the principles of relief printing. Urban, industrial and domestic objects become sources for imprints created through direct contact, allowing him to capture their scale, surface structure and materiality. The artist is particularly interested in abandoned or disappearing environments, and as a result his work often acquire a documentary character.

In the exhibition “Obelėlė“ Gardeners Association”, the artist continues his investigations into documenting environments and exploring disappearing spaces, focusing on the phenomenon of collective garden communities that emerged during the Soviet era. Within the exhibition, this specific territory unfolds not only as an example of this social and architectural phenomenon, but also as an intersection of personal and collective memory. Moving away from the large-scale industrial urban objects explored in his earlier works, the artist turns toward the environment of his childhood, where nostalgia intertwines with the irreversible transformation of the landscape taking place today.

The artist presents a series of object prints, a documentary film and archival material revealing the stories, everyday rituals and communal relationships that developed within this environment. Employing the principles of relief printing, the artist creates life-size imprints directly from the surfaces of garden houses, emphasizing their texture, scale and traces of use. The rough materiality captured through direct contact grants the works a distinctive documentary quality, while the film expands this narrative by preserving the memories of local residents, the atmosphere of the place, and the fading traces of a disappearing era. The exhibition invites viewers to reflect on the rapid effects of time on our surroundings and to reconsider collective gardens as a unique phenomenon shaped by improvisation, control, and personal freedom.

Povilas Dūda (b. 2003) is currently studying at the Department of Graphic Arts at the Vilnius Academy of Arts. He has participated in group exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad, including exhibitions at the Estonian Academy of Arts in Tallinn, the Academy of Fine Arts in Helsinki, the PXL-MAD School of Arts in Hasselt, Belgium, the Vilnius Book Fair, as well as exhibitions in South Korea and Austria. The artist currently works at the Graphic Arts Laboratory of the Vilnius Academy of Arts.

The exhibition is part of the VDA Graduation Show.

Project supervisor: Prof. Marija Marcelionytė-Paliukė.

The exhibition “Obelėlė Gardeners Association” will be on view at (AV17) gallery until June 13.