Erasing memory? Toward the decolonization of performance art in Lithuania
ENIn this paper, a performance artist aims to present reflexive narrative-building as autoethnography through the photographic documentation of decolonizationthemed Lithuanian performance art. The question within this paper is how the narratives of Lithuanian performance art deal with decolonization through a reflexive study of the photo documentation of performance art. This question is answered through a reflexive investigation into the photo documentation of three cases from Lithuania. The performance art projects attempt to reinscribe the erased (hi)stories, which use sites of performance as loaded narratives. Photo documentation allows us to look into these performances from the distance of time and following political or socio-cultural changes. The mem-ory here is the embodied remembrance of the history of the Soviet beliefs andpast governmental structures forced on Lithuanian society during the Sovietregime (colonization). Decolonizing Lithuanian post-Soviet memories meansusing an arts-based method, creating space for a dialogue that understandsthe impact of the traumatic past on the present culture. The purpose of thisresearch is, through the reflections of a performance artist, using autoethnog-raphy and performance as activism, to narrate performance art dealing withphoto images of the three studied cases to include the historical memories anddecolonization of Lithuania. Keywords: Performance art, Decolonization, Memory, Palimpsest, Erasing. [From the publication]
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