Dear Janina : A text regarding Janina Sabaliauskaite
[ Personal essay on the artist / curator Janina Sabaliauskaite ] - Written August 2022
Imagine a dark night somewhere between Edinburgh and Newcastle on a Megabus, and you are travelling with a sweet heart who has lent you their phone so that you could watch the original “Susperia” whilst they sleep with their head on your shoulder.
A few hours before the journey, we had just come out of a bad artist talk by a well-known transgressive artist and had decided to walk around in the cold night of the city with, not a soul in sight as we walked under the glow of Christmas street lights.
As my companion and I were walking, I said that whilst the artist of the night was a major arsehole, it was still an important moment for one to have as a point of reflection and to further understand where one does stand in relation to their core values.
I turn to my companion and say to her, Janina Sabaliauskaitė, that she was so much more than that arsehole; I told her that she was a talented photographer who was smart, curious and who treated her subjects throughout her work with love, care, admiration and passion.
As someone who has modelled several times for Sabaliauskaitė over a period of five years, I can sincerely attest to the sense of feeling cared for as a subject of her photographic practice; for each time I had modelled for her and the camera, there was sense in which a transformation had transpired within myself and manifested out to create something that was raw and vulnerable and beautiful.
In reality, I am not the only person who has been the model-subject of Sabaliauskaitė’s photographic work, as there are many beautiful images of friends, loved ones, objects of desire and even of the artist herself; each image is an intimate encounter, something which only a few people can claim to do and fewer still who do manage to achieve this.
Throughout her work, one can see Sabaliauskaitė’s unapologetically queer-feminist principles come up time and time again by what she captures on film; light falling on bare skin… a tender touch… the defiant celebration of finding beauty in ones own body… These are some of the things that I think and feel whenever I get to see what she has managed to capture and then deftly develop.
Of course, Sabaliauskaitė is more than just a artist-photographer, for she has also donned the roles of researcher and independent curator, notably working on such projects as “On Our Backs: An Archive” (Newbridge Project, 2017) with co-curator Jade Sweeting and “Cinematic Inclusions” (Star and Shadow Cinema, 2019) with co-curator Lina Kaminskaitė - Jančorienė.
I have highlighted these two projects due to how intrinsically the themes and ideas of identity, censorship and the various means of defiance used in each subject’s history tie together some of the fundamental foundations of Sabaliauskaitė’s core values as an artist-researcher-curator;
- “On Our Backs: An Archive” was an exhibition which focused on showing archival images (including actual photographic works from Phyllis Christopher) from the bi-monthly publication “On Our Backs: Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian”, which focused on delivering throughout the Reagan era: “Humour and social commentary […] as [well as] delivering political and aesthetic issues around sexuality, erotica [and] pornography.”
( https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/on-our-backs-an-archive/ )
- “Cinematic Inclusions” was a three-day Lithuanian film festival which sheds light on a number of Lithuanian documentary films that were created during the various points in which the Soviet Union had held Lithuania under its political control; throughout the festival, there were a variety of films ranging from those developed and influenced by the Soviet Union to a number which sought to undermine their political control through visual and poetic experimental film making, with an art sound portrait film of Lithuanian-American artist Jonas Mekas entitled “I Had Nowhere To Go” (2016, Germany) by Douglas Gordon.
These historical explorations of personal and cultural identity, as well as the various means of subverting and defying the opposing socio-political-cultural paradigms that Sabaliauskaitė has helped to curate aligns well with her practice presently; a photographic practice that seeks to capture the beauty and power of her subjects in her work in opposition to censorship and shame that various deem us.
For her work are letters of love to her subjects, her chosen family from across the world.
A few hours before the journey, we had just come out of a bad artist talk by a well-known transgressive artist and had decided to walk around in the cold night of the city with, not a soul in sight as we walked under the glow of Christmas street lights.
As my companion and I were walking, I said that whilst the artist of the night was a major arsehole, it was still an important moment for one to have as a point of reflection and to further understand where one does stand in relation to their core values.
I turn to my companion and say to her, Janina Sabaliauskaitė, that she was so much more than that arsehole; I told her that she was a talented photographer who was smart, curious and who treated her subjects throughout her work with love, care, admiration and passion.
As someone who has modelled several times for Sabaliauskaitė over a period of five years, I can sincerely attest to the sense of feeling cared for as a subject of her photographic practice; for each time I had modelled for her and the camera, there was sense in which a transformation had transpired within myself and manifested out to create something that was raw and vulnerable and beautiful.
In reality, I am not the only person who has been the model-subject of Sabaliauskaitė’s photographic work, as there are many beautiful images of friends, loved ones, objects of desire and even of the artist herself; each image is an intimate encounter, something which only a few people can claim to do and fewer still who do manage to achieve this.
Throughout her work, one can see Sabaliauskaitė’s unapologetically queer-feminist principles come up time and time again by what she captures on film; light falling on bare skin… a tender touch… the defiant celebration of finding beauty in ones own body… These are some of the things that I think and feel whenever I get to see what she has managed to capture and then deftly develop.
Of course, Sabaliauskaitė is more than just a artist-photographer, for she has also donned the roles of researcher and independent curator, notably working on such projects as “On Our Backs: An Archive” (Newbridge Project, 2017) with co-curator Jade Sweeting and “Cinematic Inclusions” (Star and Shadow Cinema, 2019) with co-curator Lina Kaminskaitė - Jančorienė.
I have highlighted these two projects due to how intrinsically the themes and ideas of identity, censorship and the various means of defiance used in each subject’s history tie together some of the fundamental foundations of Sabaliauskaitė’s core values as an artist-researcher-curator;
- “On Our Backs: An Archive” was an exhibition which focused on showing archival images (including actual photographic works from Phyllis Christopher) from the bi-monthly publication “On Our Backs: Entertainment for the Adventurous Lesbian”, which focused on delivering throughout the Reagan era: “Humour and social commentary […] as [well as] delivering political and aesthetic issues around sexuality, erotica [and] pornography.”
( https://thenewbridgeproject.com/events/on-our-backs-an-archive/ )
- “Cinematic Inclusions” was a three-day Lithuanian film festival which sheds light on a number of Lithuanian documentary films that were created during the various points in which the Soviet Union had held Lithuania under its political control; throughout the festival, there were a variety of films ranging from those developed and influenced by the Soviet Union to a number which sought to undermine their political control through visual and poetic experimental film making, with an art sound portrait film of Lithuanian-American artist Jonas Mekas entitled “I Had Nowhere To Go” (2016, Germany) by Douglas Gordon.
These historical explorations of personal and cultural identity, as well as the various means of subverting and defying the opposing socio-political-cultural paradigms that Sabaliauskaitė has helped to curate aligns well with her practice presently; a photographic practice that seeks to capture the beauty and power of her subjects in her work in opposition to censorship and shame that various deem us.
For her work are letters of love to her subjects, her chosen family from across the world.