Transnational migration is an immense phenomenon of this postcolonial era, involving the movement of significant numbers of people globally every day. Many are forced to leave due to extreme circumstances while others leave to gain new experiences. Subsequently, mobility, displacement and transculturalism are inseparable characteristics of contemporary society. Migracijos explores aspects of migratory culture and questions how displacement affects and transforms the lives of migrants. What is lost and what is gained in the process of transition between leaving home and settling the host country?
These questions are addressed through a dialogue with Lithuanian women representing two generations who came to live in Ireland during the ‘Celtic Tiger’ years. The resulting ‘conversations’ reveal intimate intercultural complexities concerning notions of home, language and history. Viewers are invited to reconsider commonly held negative attitudes towards migration and interculturalism and engage with the personal narratives evoking the in-between place where neither home nor language are no longer defined as fixed entities.
BIO
Ieva Baltaduonyte is a Lithuanian born artist, working and living in Ireland. She studied photography at Dublin Institute of Technology, where she obtained a BA in 2012. Since then, she was shortlisted for the Alliance Française Photography Award, her work has been shown in various group shows and exhibitions, such as the main exhibition Migration in the PhotoIreland Festival, and at the Kaunas Photo Festival.
[Bio as of 2013]