Karolina Ūla Valentaitė | Adhesions

In the exhibition “Adhesions”, emerging artist Karolina Ūla Valentaitė delves into the intricate connections between herself, her mother, and nature. These three elements intertwine like a biological adhesion, forming a unified ecosystem where beginnings and endings become indistinguishable. Just as the fungal mycelium weaves its way through the roots of various plants, Valentaitė’s works create bonds between family histories, relationships, and deeply rooted folkloric and mythological motifs.

In this exhibition, the relationship with the mother takes on the metaphor of a biological adhesion — a strong symbol of inherited connection to nature. This personal and archaic bond serves as a foundation for exploring a deeper existence within a world permeated by technology and consumerism. The artist poses the question: to what extent does a person remain instinctive, intuitive, and biologically tied to nature — and how much have they become a being distanced from it?

Seeking answers to these questions, Valentaitė’s works reveal the complexity of the human-nature relationship. This connection becomes a central thread, offering insight not only into oneself, one’s environment, and personal relationships but also into discovering new ways of existing alongside nature in a technological world.

Karolina Ūla Valentaitė (b. 1996) is an artist working across disciplines, creating in video, text, performance, and visual mediums. She graduated from the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2023 with a degree in Contemporary Sculpture. Her artistic practice explores ritualistic ceremonies, queer culture, archaism, and the relationship between humans and plants, as well as kinship ties. Valentaitė’s work places a strong focus on themes of memory, identity, and ecology. These overlapping topics gradually shape what she refers to as memory ecology, identity ecology, and the ecology of identity memory.