Sculpture
Mixed Media
Public Space
Lost Baggage
2019
Fiberglass with ceramic oxyde, black&white prints, lighting system
Each object 200 cm high
Commissioned for the 12-th Kaunas biennial, supported by Ukrainian Institute
Lost Baggage is inspired by the figure of Esther Lurie, an artist who was one of the Kaunas ghetto prisoners to survive to the Holocaust. Lurie made a series of drawings that show the characters, life conditions and streets of the Ghetto, which used to be populated by 30000 people. Some of her works have been lost, then she made new versions (replicas) after the war. According to evidences, she hid the drawings in ceramic pots and buried them in the ground to conceal them from the Nazis. Nevertheless, they were never found, as this story turned into a legend.
In his installation, Ridnyi secretes Lurie’s images into five human size ceramic pots. Ceramic is chosen as a material because of the long craft tradition that characterizes the city of Kaunas, together with its textile industry. Visitors can only spot the drawings by using small peepholes on the pots' surfaces.
The images embody the dark side of Kaunas history and Jewish minority. The hidden position for private evidences of the Holocaust problematizes ideas of displacement, forgetting, removal by and from official narratives in different periods of history. The monumental shape gives to fragile and domestic objects a public and political dimension. The permanent location of the work — the Kaunas train station -underlines the dramatic idea of the baggage which traveler is not allowed to take into a journey, a baggage which can cost a life.
Alessandra Troncone
Site: Kaunas train station
Photo: Kaunas biennial / Mykola Ridnyi
Status: temporary, re-installed
Current location: private collection, Vilnius