White Trees

Coming Soon

Project is funded by the Lithuanian Culture Council

International contest Siena Drone awards 2021
Photostory category of the Lithuanian press photography competition 2021

Forever white as the land of Elsworth. Frozen in time. Not subject to the flow of the seasons - simply dead white. House to the black birds. Apathetic, breathing through the movement of the wings that have become their eyes, drinking their greatness, and condemning them to perish.

This long-term photographic project was born in 2020 during the "Closed Territories" plein-air in Nida. Its first photographs have already been published and also got to the finals of the International contest Siena Drone awards 2021, as well as the Photostory category of the Lithuanian press photography competition 2021.

Cormorants are an invasive bird species that is mainly seen as a pest in the region -  but can this bird really only be a pest? No one has discussed any positive effects of cormorants on the natural processes. As an artist I see, that this bird destroys everything around it. There is no doubt. Everything cormorants touch freezes forever, becomes death, disappears. People drive hundreds of miles to see what nature destroyed by cormorants looks like. However, no one has created a series of photographs with a bird’s-eye view of the habitat of these birds that have basically already become the ornithological symbol of Neringa.

The idea of the project is to conduct a photographic study on cormorant invasion in Lithuania. To find out the peripeteia of life in colonies in Juodkrantė, Ožkų Cape and other places in Neringa. At the same time, I want to visually identify the collected knowledge from local inhabitants and naturalists and provide all the information related to the images. I want the viewers to get acquainted with the species of birds through artistic photography and the stories of people whose daily lives are unimaginable without cormorants.