CARMEN Utopias of Belonging

Carmen (2026) is a video installation by Lithuanian artist Ieva Lygnugarytė that revisits an almost forgotten episode from the early sixteenth century. In 1523, the poet Nicolaus Hussovianus wrote a poem about the European bison, intended to be sent together with a stuffed animal to Pope Leo X as a diplomatic gift from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The gesture aimed to introduce a peripheral region of Eastern Europe to the cultural center of Renaissance Rome. However, the pope died before the gift arrived, and the story gradually disappeared from historical memory.In the film, Lygnugarytė reimagines this episode through the figure of the poet, portrayed as someone seeking recognition beyond the margins of North-Eastern Europe. As the narrative unfolds, he gradually transforms into the bison itself, a symbol of his homeland and a metaphor for the desire to enter a cultural canon that had excluded him.Presented at the Oratorio dei Crociferi in Venice, away from the main Biennale routes, the installation reinforces themes of visibility, marginality, and belonging. The work also connects this historical narrative to the present-day reality of the Białowieża Forest, located along the contested border between Belarus and Poland, a territory marked by tension, movement, and exclusion. the project combines archival research and moving image to reflect on what happens when a culture, a voice, or a place seeks recognition yet never fully reaches the center.