flickerlounge:
LITHUANIA AND THE COLLAPSE OF THE USSR
Co-presentation
of Aurora Picture Show
November 7-December 19, 2009
Opening
Reception: Saturday, November 7, 6-8pm
Flickerlounge presents Jonas Mekas
and his newest film, LITHUANIA AND THE
COLLAPSE OF THE USSR. Forces of time,
memory, change, and human will collide in Mekas’s new film. The work’s title
refers to the historical time when the world watched as Mekas’s home country of
Lithuania fought for independence from the stronghold of Soviet rule. With a
video camera, Mekas recorded newscasts that played daily in 1991 on his
television set at home. Footage includes reports of the Soviet Union’s use of
‘aggressive actions’ that called for Lithuania to back down, freedom
demonstrations, interviews and statements made by top politicians, journalists,
and analysts including Lithuanian President Vytautas Landsbergis, Deputy Prime
Minister Kazimiera Prunskiene, Soviet Leader Mikhail Gorbachev, Russian
President Boris Yeltsin, and United States President George H.W. Bush among
others, as well as moving portraits of the Lithuanian people who were directly
affected by the conflict. Mekas’s
account, reported by news outlets in the United States, also reveals the
shaping and shifting of political, economic, and social relations between
Eastern Europe and the West at the time.
“This video is made up of footage that I
took with my Sony from the television newscasts during the collapse of the
USSR, with the home noises in the background. It’s a capsule record of what
happened and how it happened during that crucial period as recorded by the
television newscasters.
“It can be also viewed as a classic
Greek drama in which the destinies of nations are changed drastically by the
unbending, bordering-on- irrational will of one small man, one small nation
determined to regain its freedom, backed by Olympus in its fight against the
Might & Power, against the Impossible.” –J.M.
flickerlounge is a season-long
cinematic experience featuring an eclectic lineup of rotating full-length
films, shorts and video presentations to accompany visual arts exhibitions in
the Main Gallery. Lounge. Watch. Learn
For more information on Aurora Picture Show, click HERE .
DiverseWorks kicks off the season with an exhibition that commemorates the fifth anniversary of Hurricane Katrina. Take a look at how one of the U.S.'s largest natural disaster transformed the lives of artists from Southeast Louisiana. 
