MARS RETURNS

"Mars Returns" is a sound and performance event. Two days for observing bodies – artistic, celestial, earthly.

On August 26th and 27th, the Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery will turn into a large-scale listening device and musical instrument. The international sound and performance event "Mars Returns" will gather in the days of the ending summer, during which we will see and hear: Tarek Atoui, Leonardo Carlo Coccorante, Pan Daijing, Jason Dodge, Alix Eynaudi, Ernst Karl Eugen Koerner, John Menick, Valzhyna Mort, Jill Mulleady, Marija Olšauskaitė, Ragemore w/ Gediminu Žygus, Artūras Raila, Ariana Reines, Francesco Rustici, Seiko and Casio, Sofija Veiverytė. Curated by Raimundas Malašauskas.

Mars is one of the most contested bodies in the solar system. Its role in the popular and scientific imagination has far surpassed other terrestrial planets. In different cultures and at different times, it has been known by many names, but in the Western Hemisphere, it is almost exclusively named after the Roman god of war. The spectrum of fantasies that Mars has evoked is broad and contradictory: humans have never stopped wondering whether it hosts life, and have described utopian societies living on the red planet. We have both seen it as home to more advanced alien societies and prepared ourselves for an invasion of blood-thirsty Martians (although in more recent times we've been investigating the possibility of living there ourselves). I have even experienced the scent of Mars, created by an artist. Meanwhile, astrologically speaking the return of Mars implies the processes of returning, purging, increasing complexity, and bringing resolution to past experiences.

For the "Mars Returns" project, the Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery in Kaunas, which is currently closed for reconstruction, will temporarily open its doors. The gallery building was designed during the collapse of the Soviet Union and was completed in Kaunas, Lithuania, in 1989 – the same year the Berlin Wall crumbled, symbolically marking the end of the Cold War. As for today, the Cold War has been replaced by an escalating actual war in Ukraine, arguably a continuation of unresolved 20th century political conflicts amplified by imperialist and colonialist drives. We invited an international group of artists to explore the Mykolas Žilinskas Art gallery, which is currently in a state of transition (as well as the world?), and inhabit its space through sound, performance, film, and poetry. Through the communal gathering, listening, and grieving the healing process appears.