Indrė Urbonaitė

“Don’t Speak Loudly – It’s Harmful for Butterflies” is the exploration of disappointments as a result of ongoing conflict between the expectations and reality. A conflict which often occurs in relation to our growing need to consume nature by the means of tourism. Going on vacation is a crucial element of modern society. Not only it is a marker of a status but it also fulfills the desire to consume the image of the place rather than the place itself.

The project invites the viewer to take a short vacation to the place that is so familiar yet doesn’t exist.
What constitutes a “good view”?
How blue is the water?
What is the definition of a beach?

A generic holiday place is constructed out of online stock video fragments filmed with the phone from the screen. The hand held movement, reflections, autofocus and glitch merge together with the image bank conventional landscape aesthetics morphing into the new abstractions.

The voice-over guides the viewer through the disappointing hiking trail with the goal of finding the butterflies as a metaphor to the beautiful scenery. The narrative is inspired and written out of the collection of negative online reviews from various “must-see” places. The continuously looping videos together with the narrative reveal the never-ending man’s desire to find the utopian beauty in nature.

Indrė Urbonaitė (Lithuania, 1986) currently lives and works in The Hague, the Netherlands. After completing her marketing studies in Lithuania, she moved to the Netherlands where she has recently finished a Bachelor’s in Arts at The Hague Royal Academy of Art. Her work questions how identity and privacy are affected by the daily image overload that surrounds us or in which we willingly dive into. Urbonaitė’s works have been part of various group shows in the Netherlands, France, Latvia and Switzerland. Her project State of Shame was nominated for Seeking the Latest in Photography 2018 Award in the Riga Photography Biennial and the book, part of the project, received an honourable mention at Luma Rencontres Dummy Book Award Arles 2018.