Fluxus East

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas both attended the Art Academy of Vilnius, where they completed their studies in 1994. Initially, Nomeda Urbonas specialised in graphic art and photography, while Gediminas Urbonas concentrated on sculpture and three-dimensional art. From 1993-97, they created the art project Jutempus, which centres on the interfaces between social and artistic practice and enquires after the position of contemporary art in (post-Soviet) society. In 2000, they founded the interdisciplinary laboratory for media art, Vilma. Their main interest is in the transformation of Lithuanian society, urban living environments, architectonic developments and the cultural heritage of the Soviet period.

In 2005, they initiated the Pro-Test Lab, a project abolishing the borders between art, protest and civil commitment. The project is directed against the privatisation mania that began after the radical political change in Lithuania and is hitting cinemas (like Cinema Lietuva, occupied in the context of the Pro-Test Lab) and swimming pools as well as other public areas. Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas feel a particular affinity to Fluxus because of their concern for the community, negation of the aesthetic, and their praxis of playful intervention into public space. In the context of Pro-Test Lab, for example, they have organised actions – e.g. demonstrators in bathing costumes gathered on the site of a former swimming bath. This approach combines the levels of protest and art action taken ad absurdum.

Nomeda and Gediminas Urbonas have received numerous fellowships and awards. In 2002, they were represented at Documenta11 in Kassel, and in 2007, with Villa Lithuania, they were the Lithuanian Pavilion artists at the 52nd Biennial in Venice.