Gerda Paliušytė
Former Somerset House Studios resident

Gerda Paliušytė

Recipient of the Rupert x Lithuanian Culture Institute x Somerset House Studios online residency award.

Somerset House Studios
New Wing

Gerda Paliušyte (b. 1987) is a Vilnius-based artist and curator. Paliušyte’s work is concerned with tacit agreements, the desire to connect, and the temporality of collectivity. Her films tend to engage with a range of cultural agents, including historical and popular characters, focusing on the ways they modify the cultural landscape of specific places. Most of her work makes use of various documentary practices, including docu-fiction. Some examples of Paliušytė’s films include “The Road Movie”, a story about the band’s “ONYX” stay in Vilnius (2015), “Desire For Things To Work”, depicting a night journey in Amsterdam voiced by telephone sex workers (2016), and “Nevermore”, a documentary about the legend of American writer Edgar Alan Poe in Baltimore (2020). Since 2018 Paliušyte has belonged to the artist collective Montos Tattoo.

In her works, Paliušytė explores cultural history and contradictions found within it. She is interested in various documentary practices (such as docufiction), diverse historical and pop culture characters, and their relationship with social reality.

During the residency, the Vilnius-based Paliušytė will work on her new film "Early Winter", which focuses on the escapist forms of entertainment used by a group of pupils in one of the secondary schools in Vilnius. The film focuses on the annual "Horror Escape Room", one of the more popular attractions at the school's Christmas party, exploring alternative realities and platforms, which not only strengthen the school community but also emphasise the impact of the virtual on more traditional infrastructures, such as schools.

During her time at Somerset House Studios, Paliušytė would hope to gain a new understanding of how virtual spaces – created and archived on social media apps, can be eloquently incorporated in the narrative structure of the documentary film both aesthetically and technically.

In partnership with

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