Sun & Sea

From Lithuania, the stage version of the installation-opera-performance on the climate crisis by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė, Vaiva Grainytė and Lina Lapelytė, which received the Golden Lion at the 2019 Venice Art Biennale.

On a sandy beach lit by artificial sun, people in swimsuits enjoy a typical day at the beach. They sunbathe, read, play and talk as the audience walks along a walkway and watches them from above. This completely banal and everyday situation is transformed when the music starts. The songs reveal a number of both individual and collective concerns: from burned skin as a result of too much exposure to the sun, to fear of an environmental catastrophe. Frivolous micro-stories gradually make way for much more serious subjects and individual songs, and a universal chorus that addresses global concerns. 

Sun & Sea is the stage version of the installation-opera-performance presented by the official Lithuanian pavilion at the 2019 Venice Art Biennale. The project, by Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė (a film and theatre director and visual artist), Vaiva Grainytė (writer, playwright and poet) and Lina Lapelytė (musician and composer), won the Golden Lion for the best national participation. The project is a critical proclamation against the climate crisis which combines an artistic installation and theatrical performance. 

Sun & Sea is the second collaboration between the three artists. Their contemporary opera for 10 cashiers, supermarket sounds and piano Have a Good Day!- created between 2011 and 2013 and still touring the world - won six international awards in Europe. It has toured more than twenty festivals and was broadcast on BBC Radio 3 and the Lithuanian National Radio.


WHAT THE PRESS SAID

"The zenith perspective makes the spectator become, in a way, a social anthropologist, an observer of that animal species that is the human being. [...] The large hall of the Teatre Lliure, the Fabià Puigserver, one of the best endowed spaces in Europe, has modified its conventional layout, with capacity for 700 people, to host this performance." El diario.es - Pablo Caruana

"This is not the only work of the Venice Art Biennale that deals with the effects of climate change, but it is the one that has surprised the most by its originality. Up to three hours have been queued to access the Lithuanian pavilion grounds to watch Sun & Sea." Ópera actual - Lourdes Morgades

"Sun & Sea is an allegory of gross inaction: While the world dies, we remain inert, basking in the burning sun. [···] Barzdžiukaitė reorients viewers’ habitual perspective, placing us in an atypical position. [···] As we gaze down at them from above, the proposition that technology will save us appears a cruel irony. Perhaps Sun & Sea (Marina) is not an opera after all, but a requiem." Artforum - Erika Balsom

“A mini biopsy of human existence, under a bright light like on a petri-dish.”
Przekrój - Kristina Sabaliauskaitė

“A masterpiece for the era of climate change.”
The New York Times - Joshua Barone

“One of the greatest achievements in performance of the last 10 years.”
The New York Times - Jason Farago

“A lament to the eclipse of the world…”
The Guardian - Searle Adrian

“A haunting manifestation of our messed up relationship with our planet.”
Time Out London - Andrzej Lukowski

“An intensely beautiful experience.”
Financial Times - Sarah Hemming

Signs of the Apocalypse on the Beach. An interview with Vaiva Grainytė, Lina Lapelytė and Rugilė Barzdžiukaitė. echo gone grown - Agnė Sadauskaitė

Art & Ecology.An interview with curator Lucia Pietroiusti. Berlinartlirik - Aoife Donnellan