'Is life very solid or very shifting? I am haunted by the two contradictions. This has gone on forever; goes down to the bottom of the world - this moment I stand on. Also, it is transitory, flying, diaphanous. I shall pass like a cloud on the waves.”
Virginia Woolf. ‘A Writer's Diary’. 4th January 1929.
Myymälä2 is pleased to present “52 weeks” by Vilnius-based artist Jurgita Wru. The exhibition marks her first solo show outside Lithuania. ‘52 Weeks features a selection of her instant pictures and self-portraits, which she began in 2020 and continues to produce. This series can be seen as a visual diary—providing a quiet space for self-reflection. In fact, each weekly portrait is a record capturing a trace, a feeling, a presence, a fleeting pose. It is both a ritual and a discipline— a necessary opportunity to return to herself again and again.
Wru's weekly ritual started in the middle of a soul-searching quest, she discloses: “The idea was born in 2019, during a time when I had no job and began to feel lost—not sure who I was or what I wanted. I was searching for a way to reconnect with myself. Then, taking one instant photo each week became that way—simple, honest, and real”
Wru makes herself the focus of visual examination and scrutiny, seemingly exposing intimate personal details, which in front of our eyes might be accepted as her emotional truth or parts of her biography revealed through instant picture snapshots. One could say that Wru “52 weeks” demonstrates the diligent attempt to create a historical record of her life by devising a remembrance strategy that counters an absence, a vagueness of her memory and her growing tendency to forget. Paraphrasing John Berger, “What any true photography touches is an absence —an absence of which, without the photography, we might be unaware.”
Exhibition’s curator Ramiro Camelo concludes: “Wru ‘52 weeks’ demonstrates a deep and uncommon closeness, attachment, and trust with herself. It examines how introspection involves imagining, shifting, and fostering awareness of how she inhabits the here and now—encompassing past, present, and future.”
Artist’s Bio:
Jurgita Wru, born in 1989, Lithuania. In 2024, she graduated from the Applied Photography program at Vilnius College of Design. Her main area of interest is self-portrait photography as a discipline of self-observation and a tool for exploring the self and the surrounding environment.
In the summer of 2024, a self-portrait from the series ‘Dreams’ was exhibited in a group show named after R. Rakauskas in Anykščiai. In September 2024, the entire series was presented as part of the annual photography symposium Nida OFF program.
The exhibition, curated by Ramiro Camelo, is part of Myymälä 2 Baltic Fellowship Network, which promotes collaboration, kinship, and artistic exchanges between Finland and the Baltic countries.
The exhibition is supported by The Lithuanian Council for Culture.
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