Milda Lembertaitė's critical and playful work operates between sculptural and digital-video, eco-activism, Dadaist performance and investigates our relationship with nature, technology and history. Milda explores what we can learn about ourselves through the non-human, with a focus on materiality and collaboration.
In 2015 a falling tree branch hitting Milda's head became a new conversational partner. The sculptures that result from chance encounters evoke the relationships between touching and seeing and of being touched and being seen. Held aloft by one of the branch’s limbs, with bark peeled and their many knots exposed as eyes, a smooth black obsidian stone reveals a message- ‘Do not touch me on your phone’.
Taking on the fluid visual display of a TV screen as an extension of the body’s surface, the choreographed movements in the performances seamlessly blend the physical with the ‘immateriality’ of the digital image translated into a sweat and muscular exertion as the performer drags, caresses, lifts and dances with the large, heavy screens.
By weaving together natural and technological objects, and drawing from personal, collective and geological histories, Milda blurs the boundary between human and non-human experiences. She nods to what is sometimes a beautiful, sometimes tragic, but always shared, fate and asks: how can we remember where we came? What does it mean to join together to protect using technologies that intrinsically harm?