Fluid bodies 4/5. Agents

Agents
Anastasia Sosunova
Video, 14’ 57 ‘‘, 2020

Agents is a moving image work created during the spring of 2020, which contemplates folk art history and observes the effect of strict quarantine measures on people and their creativity. Revisiting and filming the sites of traditionally carved wooden public sculpture that include the motifs of her region, Sosunova notices how forests and parks are gradually filled with spontaneous vernacular art and temporary structures by its visitors. Investigating the agency behind the folk art revival and the vernacular creativity, the protagonist of the video initiates a dialogue with a wood artisan to express suspicions and learn what lies behind their intentions to reproduce ethnic art imagery and myths. As the conversation unfolds on whether the agency may be distributed around a host of artefacts enrolled in the realisation of our original intentions, the two in the car wait for an ‘agent’ to be sighted in the flesh and action. 
(For artistic purposes the dialogue with wood artisan Gintaras Černius was scripted and edited).

 Anastasia Sosunova’s (b. 1993, Visaginas, Lithuania) interdisciplinary practice consists of video, installation, sculpture, graphic, and texts. By employing personal stories, images framing locations, and subtle material gestures that people leave in their habitats, Anastasia weaves wider stories about the communities and identities to come. She has recently shown her work at SixtyEight Art Institute, Copenhagen (2022); Britta Rettberg gallery, Munich; Screens Series programme in New Museum, New York; Prospectif Cinéma programme at Centre Pompidou, Paris; 14th Baltic Triennial, Vilnius (2021); 2nd Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art; ‘Double Exposure / Roots to Routes’ at Manifesta 13, Marseille (all 2020); ‘The Vampire Squad from Hell’ at the Wrong Biennale, 2019, among others. Publications include ‘Express Method’ published by Swallow in 2021 and the digital artist’s book ‘Detox Siblings’ (2019).