Unsettled Times | VAA gallery ARTIFEX exposition at the MoBU Contemporary Art Fair in Bucharest
From June 3–7, the exhibition of the VAA Gallery ARTIFEX will be presented at the international contemporary art fair MoBU in Bucharest, Romania. Booth A02, ROMEXPO Exhibition Centre.
The gallery’s primary focus is materiality, understood in both reflective and physical senses. We are interested in projects that explore this theme in diverse forms—through sound, textiles, objects, texts, actions, and processes. By responding creatively and unexpectedly to constantly changing circumstances, we seek to continually reconsider textile art and its significance in today’s context. We value the creator’s unique relationship with material and technique, conceptual solutions, and strong artistic statements.
The VAA gallery ARTIFEX exhibition “Unsettled Times” interweaves works inspired by the tension currently prevailing in the world — amid geopolitical conflicts, economic upheavals, wars, and informational chaos. In such periods, art, culture, sport, and fashion become not only instruments of soft power but also points of resistance — symbols of values, protest, and identity; spaces for reflection; and ways to speak about what hurts or unsettles us. At times this is done through beauty, love, and memory; at others, through sadness, pain, traumatic experiences, and discomfort.
This stand brings together representatives of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA) community (lecturers, students, and alumnae) — creators, artists, women, and textile practitioners come together, whose works highlight the direction of contemporary textile art and the importance of craftsmanship. A practice traditionally associated with home, security, and women’s work here transcends the boundaries of domesticity and acquires a conceptual and critical charge. Gentleness and fragility become not signs of weakness, but expressions of resilience and position.
The exhibition not only reflects anxiety but also proposes sensitivity as a response. It invites us to pause and hear the voice of the material — quiet yet persistent. Here, the visitor encounters not a declarative manifesto, but a slow, layered experience in which thread becomes a form of memory, resilience, and dialogue — a connection between personal experience and global processes.
Participants | Barbora Gediminaitė, Dovilė Gudačiauskaitė, Gabrielė Navickaitė, Jelena Škulienė, Justina Gražytė, Justina Semčenkaitė, Severija Inčirauskaitė-Kriaunevičienė, Unė Labutytė
Curated by | Justina Gražytė
Design | Emilė Krutulytė
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