“There is probably no sadder place than this anywhere in world. Just sand and water: not a single tree or a shadow, or a spring from which one could drink fresh water, not a single patch of green grass to break up the uniform whiteness of the sands. I cannot comprehend how people can live here”.
Gottfried Peter Rauschnick, a fragment from “Observations of a Russian travelling through Prussia in 1814 on the land and its people”.
The starting point of Spit is the story of the Curonian Spit, a narrow sand peninsula in present-day Lithuania, famous for its seemingly idyllic dunes, pine forests, and fishing villages that have long served as a backdrop for landscape painters and poets. Beneath this pastoral beauty lies a past of environmental violence. In the 17th and 18th centuries, uncontrolled deforestation, intensified during the Russian army’s presence in the Seven Years’ War, stripped the ancient forests that once held the sand in place. As the roots gave way, the dunes began to move. The sand began creeping in, burying homes, churches, graveyards. Eventually, as many as fourteen coastal villages were submerged under the dunes, turning the spit into a barren wasteland. This dark fragment of history echoes the present moment, in which ecological catastrophe is again accelerated by extraction and war. Though the reality of wooden warships is far behind us, the story becomes relevant as a warning sign - this is what happens when nature has its retribution.
Spit emanates a tactile sensation that captures the very moment of disaster, when the sand creeps into your house, filling your ears, lodging itself between your teeth, spilling into your bedsheets. The catastrophe is not a single, spectacular moment - it moves forward slowly, grain by grain, until there is nothing else to see.
Sound installation was created in collaboration with Łucja Motyl and Kacper Nowak.
About the artist:
Ola Skowrońska is a Polish visual artist. She graduated with an MA in Photography from the Łódź Film School. Her practice is focused on long-term, research-based projects which originate from observations of historical and social phenomena. Often working in collaboration with other individuals, she is interested in the possibility of creating a space for equitable conversation and exchange in art, particularly in the context of migration and contemporary social politics. A large part of her artistic research focuses on the ethics of representation and the socio-political impact of images.
Her work has been exhibited internationally during Circulation(s) Festival, PhMuseum Days and Kraków Photomonth, among others.Her first solo exhibition, „Heda”, opened as a part of the Warsaw Gallery Weekend 2025 edition. Warsaw Gallery Weekend She is a recipient of the Konrad Pustoła scholarship and the Polish Ministry of Culture scholarship. She lives and works in Łódź.
Graphic design: Ugnė Balčiūnaitė
Pictures by Gediminas Sass
Kintai Arts is funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture
