Virtual life to a neomodernist artwork

The Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia (ILFA UL) in collaboration with the Lithuanian art gallery "Vilniaus Galerija" invites visitors to experience an innovative cultural heritage and science communication project – the immersive virtual reality exhibition "Velvet Darkness".

In virtual reality Dr. Toms Ķencis, leading researcher at ILFA UL, and interdisciplinary artist Dena Doloresa Sircova have brought to life the lost heritage of the Lithuanian artist couple Birutė Žilytė (1930–2024) and Algirdas Steponavičius (1927–1996): twelve striking frescoes from the former children’s tuberculosis sanatorium Pušelė, located in the village of Naujieji Valkininkai, approximately one hour’s drive from Lithuania’s capital, Vilnius.

“The conditional creative freedom afforded by the so-called Khrushchev Thaw, the remote location, and the child audience made it possible to create here, between 1968 and 1971, one of the most vivid and largest artworks of its time in our neighbouring country. The artists encoded Greek mythological and Lithuanian folkloric figures, as well as forbidden pop-culture symbols, zodiac signs, and elements of the coat of arms of the independent Lithuanian state,” explains Toms Ķencis.

Until the summer of 2027 every Friday visitors to the Reading Room of the Latvian Folklore Archives at ILFA UL will have the opportunity to enter a surreal neomodernist artwork composed of more than one hundred square metres of digitally restored wall paintings. The Reading Room is located on the 5th floor (Room 515) of the National Library of Latvia and is open to visitors on Fridays from 11:00 a.m. to 5:00 p.m. The exhibition, lasting several minutes, can be experienced using "Meta Quest" virtual reality headset.

The creators of the exhibition express their gratitude to new media artist Ieva Vīksne and the Žanis Lipke Memorial for their support.

The exhibition is the final activity of Toms Ķencis’s ERDF postdoctoral research project “ETHNO-GRAPHICS: Visual Interpretations of Baltic Intangible Cultural Heritage” (No. 1.1.1.2/VIAA/4/20/628), which focused on works by Birutė Žilytė created during the period of Soviet occupation.