Lina Lapelytė, What happens with a dead fish?, 2021

Lina Lapelytė, What happens with a dead fish?
2021, installation / performance, 30min

In her artistic practice, Lina Lapelytė investigates how the pop aesthetic of music could be a vehicle for amplifying a message. In her latest work – winner of the latest Golden Lion at the Venice Biennale together with Vaiva Grainyte and Rugile Barzdžiukaite – she has created a hyper-realistic, multi-voice beach musical about global warming. For the opening of the first public open-air swimming pool in Brussels, Lina Lapelytė creates new musical performance work for local choir singers about being a fish, going down, the fragility and eternity. Brussels has no public outdoor swimming pools. Although the debate has been going on for years, last summer, with thousands of families unable to travel, access to places of leisure became even more important. For instance, who has access to the coast? What attempts are being made for privatisation and the reiteration of logics of systemic discrimination? For summer 2021, Pool is Cool and Decoratelier, with the support of the festival, make the dream of many come true by building an open-air swimming pool next to the bridge Pierre Marchant, which is set to stay open all summer. The work of Lina Lapelytė appears as a live musical for its opening days and as a sonic installation around the pool, becoming a hybrid space of bathers and spectators, with some narratives existing beneath the water’s surface.

Presentation: Kunstenfestivaldesarts-Pool is Cool-Decoratelier
Conception, music, direction: Lina Lapélytė
Commissioned and produced by Kunstenfestivaldesarts
Choir leader: Floris Lammens
Ceramic objects made in collaboration with: Lisa Egio & Elliot Kervyn (Frizbee ceramics)
Costumes: Justė Maldžiūnaitė
Singers: Lot Lemm, Nathalie Mollet, Moumy Chahou, Ann Vandencasteele, Irene Rossi, Hilde Sagon, Isabelle Van Asbroeck, Miek Rijsbosch, Catherine Zubkow, Chris Renson, Bart Onsia, Joachim Put, Erik Vandecasteele, Ulli De Leener, Raf Custers, Sophie Wiedemann, Marie-Carmen De Zaldo, Amélie Plateau, Aurélie Alessandroni, Rebecca Sforzani, Brussels Experimental, La Main sur le Cœur
Production assistant: Agne Kupryte
Supported by: Flagey
Thanks to: WIOS vzw