The Sharp Edge of Glass exhibition view at Meno Parkas Gallery, Kaunas, 2020. 


The Sharp Edge of Glass - Gallery Meno Parkas (Kaunas)
October - December 2020

International participants and artists: Eglė Budvytytė and Bart Groenendal, Eduardo Hurtado, SERAFINE 1369 (Jamila Johnsson-Small) in collaboration with Matthew Dane Livingston, Mourad Kouri, and Claudia Pagès.

Curated by: Alba Folgado.


The exhibition The Sharp Edge of Glass takes as its starting point the concepts of “opacity” and “resistance,” characteristics that are on the one hand properties of glass and on the other hand refer to the challenge of social limitations. With this in mind, the exhibition aims to create a dialogue between practices for which disobedience and transgression are means of breaking with established canons.

The resistance and hardness of glass differs from another of its properties: “fragility.” But these characteristics are not mutually exclusive. They coexist and together make it a valuable and useful material. Likewise, struggles against racist, misogynic, and normative attitudes share the contradiction of opposing an oppressive system while using the same weapons against it. However, it is also through failure that learning occurs. Therefore, difference and opaque alliances must be defended as places where another value system is possible. It is on the margins where alternatives to social injustice are able to emerge and, through collective work, can affect the mechanisms of social regulation.

From various perspectives, Eglė Budvytytė, Eduardo Hurtado, Jamila Johnsson-Small, Mourad Kouri, and Claudia Pagès explore forms of resistance against situations of exclusion and control. Using creative expressions such as writing, dance, or storytelling, they embrace oddities and social divergences, an attitude that has also empowered their own work.






Views of the exhibition The Sharp Edge of Glass at Meno Parkas Gallery, Kaunas, 2020. Works in order of appearance: Eglė Budvytytė and Bart Groenendal, Claudia Pagès, Eduardo Hurtado, Mourad Kouri and Jamila Johnson-Small. Photography by Gintare Zaltauskaite.





This exhibition was part of Vitrum Festival 2020.
The performance BASICTENSION was developed in collaboration with contemporary dance theatre AURA and performer Mathew Dane Livingston.

The attendance of curator Alba Folgado was supported by Nordic Culture Point.