Eglė Budvytytė: animism sings anarchy

For the 61st Venice Biennale in 2026, Eglė Budvytytė will represent Lithuania, exhibiting a new multi-channel film installation animism sings anarchy. 

The project has been commissioned by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art under Commissioner Lolita Jablonskienė, Director of the National Gallery of Art, a subdivision of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. It is being curated by Louise O’Kelly, a London based independent curator and founding Director of Block Universe, a leading international performance art festival and commissioning body. Eglė Budvytytė is an artist based in Vilnius and Amsterdam working at the intersection between the visual and performing arts. Her practice, spanning song, video and performance, explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability and permeable relationships between bodies, audiences and the environment.

Inscribed on 16mm, animism sings anarchy is a performative and poetic attempt to translate archaeological research and materials into songs, feelings, movement, and altered states. The film draws on the late Lithuanian anthropologist and archaeologist Marija Gimbutas’s research into Neolithic matrilineal, animist societies—a source of inspiration for artists, academics, and environmentalists associated with second-wave feminism. Filming took place at locations that coalesce with, and challenge notions of, pre-historical narratives; the Museo delle Civiltà in Rome and in Apulia near Grotta Scaloria, the site of a Neolithic water cult where Gimbutas undertook excavations in the late 1970s.Building on her practice of working through the body and with place, Budvytytė structures the film’s scenes around museum interiors and an Apulian coastline populated by ancient caves and watery burial grounds. Shaped by these places, the sequences unfold like ritual movements: a form of animist prayer tethering the choreography to natural landforms and remnants of the past. Facsimiles of anthropomorphic deities—rendered as 3-D printed figurines and modest photocopies—offer a devotional locus for tender, trembling choreographies: gestures that suggest states of trance, ecstasy and surrender.

Lithuania has participated in the International Art and Architecture Exhibitions of the Venice Biennale since 1999. The Lithuanian Pavilion has been awarded a special mention four times, and in 2019 it won the Golden Lion for Sun and Sea (Marina). 

Accompanying the project will be a catalogue co-edited by Eglė Budvytytė, Virginija Januškevičiūtė and Louise O’Kelly, designed by Goda Budvytytė, with contributions by Amelia Groom, Louise O’Kelly and Sophie Strand, as well as an interview between Virginija Januškevičiūtė and Eglė Budvytytė with Ming-Jou Chen, Marija Aušra Olšauskaitė and Fazle Shairmahomed. Published in partnership with the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Vilnius, Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middleburg and BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOITE, Berlin.

Exhibition and spatial design has been conceived by Marija Aušra Olšauskaitė, an artist who employs various modes of collaboration in her practice. 

Press enquiries
International: Nicola Jeffs and Siobhan Scott, nj@nicolajeffs.com / ss@nicolajeffs.com
Lithuanian: Goda Aksamitauskaitė, National Gallery of Art, goda@ndg.lt

Credits
Organised by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art.

Financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.

Film produced in collaboration with Kanal—Centre Pompidou and EMMA—Espoo Museum of Modern Art with support from the Saastamoinen Foundation.

Filmed in collaboration with MUCIV—Museo delle Civiltà, Roma.

Film production supporters: Mondriaan Fund, Amsterdam; Magdalena Sabalė; City of Manfredonia; Block Universe, London; aketuri, Vilnius; Cosmica servisas, Vilnius; Andrius Urniežius.

Sponsors: Barco; Girteka; VMG Group; Wood Line; Produttori di Manduria.

Publication partners: Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middleburg; BOM DIA BOATARDE BOA NOITE, Berlin.

Partners: Upė Foundation, London;  Alserkal, Dubai; Cultura Lituana in Italia 2026–2026.

Media partners: Lithuanian National Radio and Television, JCDecaux Lithuania.