Caption: Lauryn Skeisgiela, VGMC
From 19 June to 12 July 2025, the Vilnius Graphic Art Centre gallery in Lithuania is hosting an exhibition by Prof. Raphael Vella titled ‘Kratija’. Curated by Professor Žygimantas Augustinas, the exhibition reflects about the troubling nature of democracy in our times in a series of large-scale and smaller drawings, sculpture and video works. The exhibition questions anthropocentric foundations of governance, while exploring the role of non-human beings as active participants in political and social life, interrogating the present and offering speculative imaginaries.
From 19 June to 12 July 2025, the Vilnius Graphic Art Centre gallery in Lithuania is hosting an exhibition by Prof. Raphael Vella titled ‘Kratija’. Curated by Professor Žygimantas Augustinas, the exhibition reflects about the troubling nature of democracy in our times in a series of large-scale and smaller drawings, sculpture and video works. The exhibition questions anthropocentric foundations of governance, while exploring the role of non-human beings as active participants in political and social life, interrogating the present and offering speculative imaginaries.
Kratija is a made-up word that is based on the Greek word Krátos (referring to force or violence), used as an ending in words like technocracy, democracy, bureaucracy. Until recently, it was believed that force and violence are relics of the past, but the world we currently live in unfolds precisely as a site of collision of different forces.
'Kratija' is supported by the Lithuanian Council for Culture, Lithuanian Artists’ Association and Arts Council Malta.
