Lina Lapelytė

«What happens with a dead fish?» is an intimate meditation on the present and an invitation to reflect on cycles – such as expired foods, vanishing forests and life itself and what comes thereafter. The quiet and contemplative work by Lithuanian artist Lina Lapelytė was first shown at Kunstenfestivaldesarts in Brussels in 2021. For this year’s Theater Spektakel, Lapelytė adopted the work for Lake Zurich. In this new version, she refers to current topics such as the war in Ukraine that is happening in an already heated geopolitical situation or the climate crisis that is revealing a new facet every day. The texts that are used in the songs have been written in the the past two years. Besides texts by Lapelytė herself, a text by Dariia Chechushkova aka Dasha is performed. Chechushkova’s text was written on the first day of the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Lapelytė was present at the penultimate Theater Spektakel with «Sun & Sea». The endless opera, developed with Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė and Vaiva Grainytė and awarded for the best national participation at the Venice Biennale, was shown at the Werft venue in 2020. From a gallery, the spec­tators looked down on a seemingly innocuous beach scene only to realise that «Sun & Sea» was a strong piece of social criticism. Now, Lapelytė returns to Zurich and presents another multilayered work in an unusual setting, to give us long­lasting food for thought. (rb)