Lighting the way: Lithuanian "Vėlinės" visuality as participation, resistance, rupture, and repair

ENDuring the days of Visų Šventųjų diena (All Saints’ Day) and Vėlinių dieną (All Souls’ Day), Lithuanians traverse the country bearing candles and flowers to lay on the graves of their beloved dead. Although these are Roman Catholic practices, many of the Lithuanians who venture to cemeteries are not Catholic or Catholic identifying. As a church historian described in conversation, ‘Vėlinės has overflowed the banks of the church’, it carries a distinctive and powerful importance in Lithuania. The pervasiveness of death, suffering, loss, exile and dislocation is a prominent aspect of the Lithuanian experience in the modern era. Exploration of the visual aspects of these bodily practices reveals complex dimensions of memory, identity and hope entwined within these religious practices.