Emilija Škarnulytė is a Lithuanian-born artist and filmmaker. Working between the realms of the documentary and the imaginary, Škarnulytė makes films and immersive installations exploring deep time and invisible structures. She works in realms that range from the cosmic and geological to the ecological and political.
She most recently presented works at MoMA PS1, Palais de Tokyo, Louisiana MoMA, Villa Medici, MORI Art Museum, Kiasma, Gwangju Biennale, Helsinki Biennale, Penumbra. Her work was presented in solo exhibitions at Kunsthall Trondheim (2024), Canal Projects, NYC (2024), Kunsthaus Göttingen (2024) Ferme-Asile, Sion (2023); Kunsthaus Pasquart, Biel/Bienne (2021); Den Frie, Copenhagen (2021); National Gallery of Vilnius (2021); Künstlerhaus Bethanien, Berlin (2017); Contemporary Art Centre CAC of Vilnius (2015). An upcoming show at Tate St Ives will open in October 2025.
Prizes awarded to her include the 2023 Ars Fennica Award and the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize. She represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano and participated in the Baltic Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. She has films in the collections of the Centre Pompidou, Kadist Foundation, Kiasma, Fondazione in between Art and Film, IFA, HAM, FRAC Corsica, LNMA, MO Museum, and private collections. Her works have been screened at the Tate Modern and Serpentine Gallery in London, Centre Pompidou in Paris, Museum of Modern Art in New York, and numerous film festivals, including Oberhausen, Visions du Réel, Rotterdam, Busan, among many others.
She is a founder and currently co-directs Polar Film Lab, a collective for analogue film practice located in Tromsø, Norway and is a member of the artist duo New Mineral Collective.
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art, Copenhagen, Denmark
2021 09 12 – 11 14
Emilija Škarnulytės impressive video installation, t 1/2, is an artistic suggestion of the imprints our ideological constructions and massive, scientific structures leaves on earth in a posthuman age. t 1/2 is now shown for the first time in Denmark.
The video installation t 1/2 is made up of the artist’s own camera footage, amongst other from a nuclear power plant, Etruscan tomb monuments, a neutrino observatory and a submarine base from the Cold War. The title of the work comes from physics where t 1/2 denotes the half-life of a nuclear particle. The documentary footage is superimposed or made ambiguous via different layers of fiction and mythological elements. The work draws a vision of our world, seen from a future, archaeological perspective.
An immersive multi-sensory performance Sensory Remote Seabed was prepared for the opening of the exhibition.
Den Frie Centre of Contemporary Art