Reflections on practice: LT Ranch project space
Kotov, Kristina (2012) Reflections on practice: LT Ranch project space. In: Duration conference, AV Festival: international festival of art, music and film, 29-31 March 2014, Culture Lab, Newcastle University. (Unpublished)
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LT Ranch Project space; migration, temporality & duration...exists in a remote rural area of Lithuania. There is a fragility as well as robustness inherent; care of ecosystems found, recovered, reconsidered; respect of privacy in the hamlet and potential vandalism. It is public but not over-publicized. My parents were of mixed background but Lithuanian by birth. I was born and raised in Chicago where my parents emigrated after WW2. I myself have immigrated to the UK, returning to both the US and Lithuania regularly.
This Ranch space was purchased in 2005 and has been extensively documented since then, existing buildings have been respectfully re-appropriated, uses adapted and re-invented during each visit. Arriving rituals include collection of stories from the neighbour caretaker, checking up on traces from the meanwhile; accumulated dust, mice visits, weathering of spaces left previously, enabling the next stages; a ritual. Students and peers of varied backgrounds have convened on the space developing making, dismantling, food, storytelling, invented games, and experience in/of this extensive landscape. These activities are captured in memory of the photograph or film and collectively archived. Interventions continue as a function of the extreme weather conditions which may then render it impermanent, nonetheless having a continuous lifespan. Departure entails temporary everyday needs being packed away. The meanwhile begins: fields and grass grow back and animals return to paths used to traverse during their own seasonal needs. What may remain from visit to visit are these fragments recognized by the next arrivals who carve out routes in the landscape, modestly creating new traces of inhabitation. This slowness averages during these visits in contrast with the places travelled from.
The Ranch Space is a vehicle to enable and participate in these research interests; migration, the notion of public-ness, the dialogues of cultural exchange; 'making' possibilities, iteration, perceived 'failure' and required humour and mischief.
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