A three-channel video installation called Stork, a Sacred Bird is a video recording of Lelonek’s observations of the white stork population at the Getliņi landfill site. Located just outside Riga, it is the largest mixed landfill site in the entire Baltic region. It was there that Lelonek first saw storks feeding on food waste brought in by countless trucks. The encounter with storks at the Getlini landfill site has been her closest encounter with these birds so far, and the first time I was able to watch them up close and in such large numbers. The film is something between a nature documentary and a speculative theory, in which Lelonek quite freely reinterprets scientific facts. To the artist, the sight of a stork on a landfill site is a great pretext for deconstructing, decolonizing, and critically reassessing the cultural entanglement and representations of the stork.
Commissioned under the topic Beyond Ecology, presented as part of exhibitions:
Decolonial Ecologies: Understanding Postcolonial after Socialism, Riga Art Space, Latvia; November 2, 2022 – January 15, 2023; organized by Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art
Hay, Straw, Dump, Václav Špála Gallery, Prague, The Czech Republic; March 28 – May 3, 2023; organized by Jindřich Chalupecký Society
Imagine a Breath of Fresh Air, Galleria Studio, Warsaw, Poland, June 6 – July 30, 2023, organized by Jindřich Chalupecký Society
Photo: Jan Kolský
