Reading Room catalogue

Portraitzine is the latest project by Visvaldas Morkevičius, comprising a series of photographs resulting from visual anthropology research. The author sees Portraitzine as a collection of “journeys.” A journey is understood as a metaphor that gives a foundation for this project, defined by such parameters as a choice of a destination (a photographic subject), documentation of displacement (a photograph), and a curated collection of entries (a publication). It aims to relay the experience of undiscovered, often exotic environments and their denizens. Meticulously looking for details that could outline their identities, the research glances over the quotidian surroundings and considers the postures that characters take in front of the camera: an artificial observer put in between the photographer and his subject. The photographer, by no means assumed as being in a superior position, accepts the role of “a tourist” who collects memorabilia and ephemera through observation. In Portraitzine, these ‘souvenirs’ speak not about a country or a city, but about people, their living and creative environments and their daily lives. Thus the focus point considers the person in a photographic frame altogether with his/her environs, emotional condition, personal qualities and temper, some of which have yet to be deciphered. The route is planned carefully, or happens by an accident like an irresistible ‘last minute’ call. Portraying people in an ethnographic manner, Morkevičius takes up the project as a form of a journey, and presents its outcomes in a visual logbook format – Portraitzine publication.

Gintas K talks with sounds. Born as Gintas Kraptavičius in Lithuania in 1969, he has been active in experimental music scene since 1994. Gintas was the core member of Lithuanian industrial electronic music group “Modus”, while later taking up the role of an interdisciplinary artist, performing in a Fluxus manner. Today, besides collaborating with other sound artists, he periodically releases experimental and electroacoustic records and performs in various international festivals of new media art.

As someone enveloped in the experimental field of sound-making, Gintas doesn‘t exactly enjoy being photographed. He works and lives in a seemingly modest town of Marijampolė in a south of Lithuania. These qualities – professed indifference towards a coat of shiny surface and unassuming seriousness – are also those of his music. It asks for an engaged, concentrated listener. The subtlety of Gintas music extends to this book-project. Both are best enjoyed in silence. (Paulius Petraitis)

Portraitzine is a project by Visvaldas Morkevičius, comprising a series of photographes as results of the visual anthropology research.The author sees Portraitzine as a collection of “journeys.” A journey is understood as a metaphor that gives a base for this project, defined by such parameters as a choice of a destination (a photographic subject), documentation of displacement (a photographe), and a curated collection of entries (a publication). It aims to relay the experience of undiscovered, often exotic environments and their denizens. Meticulously looking for details that could outline their identities, the research glances over the quotidian surroundings and gazes at postures that characters take in front of the camera: an artificial observer put in between the photographer and his subject. The photographer, by no means assumed as being in a superior position, accepts the role of “a tourist” who collects memorabilia and ephemera through observation. In Portraitzine, these ‘souvenirs’ speak not about a country or a city, but about people, their living and creative environments and their daily. Thus the focus point considers the person in a photographic frame altogether with his / her environs, emotional condition, personal qualities and temper, some of which have yet to be deciphered. The route is planned carefully, or happens by an accident like an irresistible ‘last minute’ call. Portraying people in an ethnographic manner, Visvaldas takes up the project as a form of a journey, and presents its outcomes in a visual logbook format – Portraitzine publication. (Ignas Petronis)