THE POOL is a conceptual, two-year-long artistic research project that explores themes of restriction, freedom, choice, and inner transformation through an installation of glass and light. The idea for the project emerged as a response to shifting perspectives and a range of experiences, all of which converge—like merging currents—into a single metaphor: the pool. Here, the pool is understood as a confined yet transformation-friendly space. The research incorporates various forms: watercolors, the artist’s visual diaries, drawings by her mother that preserve childhood memories, and theoretical reflection.

Why a pool?
In this work, the pool serves as a metaphor that can be understood as a form of restriction. It is a small container with edges, walls, one entrance, and one exit. In the pool, we are enclosed, separated from the outside world. But I use these very boundaries to create new conditions. By repurposing the swimming pools at the Mizarai VAA practice and recreation base and the Soviet-era tiles from the VAA Stained Glass Workshop (Jasinskio Street), I created a new object—a new pool. This object provokes the viewer to look more closely and realize that the entire work is a utopia, with the use of glass material conveying transience and fragility throughout. I previously defined the pool as a metaphor for the concept of restriction; I also believe the tiles, remnants of the Soviet era, evoke similar associations with limitation. By combining elements from different locations (the pool and the tiles), I convey a transformation of place through the installation. The new pool becomes a platform for expressing change. In the context of artistic research, the pool represents both permanence and change—these merge and become an indivisible unit. I present the pool visually as an interpretation of a moment of transformation.

Recall a situation after which your perspective changed. Imagine you could stop time at the exact moment when your opinion shifted. That is the moment when you changed. Imagine being able to analyze that moment, to understand why and how it changed you.

The moment of change is the instant when the subject’s thinking transforms.

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The exhibition is part of the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA) Graduation Show 2025.
Supervisor of Urtė Lagunavičiūtė’s final creative work – Prof. Ieva Skauronė. Supervisor of the written thesis – Assoc. Prof. Deima Katinaitė, PhD
Special thanks – Kęstutis Šimonis
The exhibition will be open until June 28.