Eglė Budvytytė will represent Lithuania at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia with animism sings anarchy
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At the 61st International Art Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2026, Eglė Budvytytė will represent Lithuania, presenting the new multichannel film installation animism sings anarchy. The work will be presented at Fucina del Futuro, Castello 5063/B, 30122 Venice.
The exhibition preview for press and guests will take place on Wednesday, May 6 at 1:00 pm.
The project has been commissioned by the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, under the guidance of Commissioner Lolita Jablonskienė, Director of the National Gallery of Art, a division of the Lithuanian National Museum of Art. The project is curated by Louise O’Kelly, an independent curator based in London and founding director of Block Universe, a major international performance art festival and commissioning body.
Eglė Budvytytė is an artist based between Vilnius and Amsterdam who works at the intersection of visual and performing arts. Her practice—spanning singing, video, and performance—explores the persuasive power of collectivity, vulnerability, and the porous relationships between bodies, audiences, and environments.
Shot on 16mm film, animism sings anarchy is a performative and poetic attempt to translate archaeological research and its materials into songs, emotions, movements, and altered states of consciousness. The film draws on the research of Lithuanian anthropologist and archaeologist Marija Gimbutas on matrilineal and animist Neolithic societies—an influential source for artists, scholars, and ecologists associated with second-wave feminism.
Filming has so far taken place in southeastern Italy, near Grotta Scaloria, the site of a Neolithic water cult where Gimbutas conducted excavations in the late 1970s. Continuing a practice that works through the body and in relation to place, Budvytytė structures the film’s scenes around museum interiors and a stretch of the Apulian coastline dotted with ancient caves and watery burial sites.
Shaped by these locations, the sequences unfold as ritual movements: a form of animist prayer that anchors choreography to the landscape and to the remnants of the past. Facsimiles of anthropomorphic deities—appearing as 3D-printed figurines and humble photocopies—provide a devotional locus for tender, trembling choreographies: gestures that evoke altered states of trance, ecstasy, and compassionate surrender.
Curator Louise O’Kelly stated: “I am honored to be working with Eglė on the creation of this important new work, one of her most ambitious and significant projects to date. Shot for the first time on 16mm, animism sings anarchy charges archaeological artefacts, polyphonic melodies, and trembling choreographies with anarchic potential. In the process of collaborating with her community of creatives, I feel that something special is emerging: a medicine that is urgently needed for our times.”
Commissioner Lolita Jablonskienė commented:“The Lithuanian National Museum of Art is pleased to announce that Eglė Budvytytė will present a new work at the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia. Among the artist’s most ambitious works to date, the project draws on ideas and theories across different times and geographies, bringing to light forgotten or suppressed connections between the visible and the infinite.”
Lithuania has participated in the International Art and Architecture Exhibitions of the Venice Biennale since 1999. The Lithuanian Pavilion has received a Special Mention four times and, in 2019, was awarded the Golden Lion for Sun & Sea (Marina).
The project will be accompanied by a catalogue co-edited by Louise O’Kelly and Virginija Januškevičiūtė, designed by Goda Budvytytė, featuring essays by Amelia Groom and Louise O’Kelly, as well as an interview between Eglė Budvytytė and Virginija Januškevičiūtė. The publication is produced in collaboration with the Lithuanian National Museum of Art, Vilnius; Vleeshal Center for Contemporary Art, Middelburg; and BOM DIA BOA TARDE BOA NOIT, Berlin.
The exhibition project and installation design have been conceived by Marija Olšauskaitė, an artist whose practice unfolds through different modes of collaboration.
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