Unconditional Love by Agnė Jokšė is a previously unscreened video work and an ongoing inquiry into entangled cross-generational family relations and their role in the claim of kinship. Several interlinked chapters explore themes related to care, compassion, and love through the lens of intergenerational relations constituted in parallel to the societal and political changes in Lithuania when transitioning from the Soviet Union and its economic and ideological models into the independent state of today.

With this specific geography and sociopolitical context in mind, Agnė Jokšė questions how two sociologically distinct generations – the so-called “lost” generation formed prior to the 1990s transition period and the “independence” generation born after the reestablishment of sovereign Lithuania – became so connected while remaining politically and ideologically far apart? And how do their generational clashes affect the relationship dynamics of these two groups that are often closely linked by a family bond?

In Unconditional Love, Jokšė observes and follows the thread of family relations as it takes her to seemingly ordinary, but tender emotional places. By filming and interviewing her extended family in Lithuania and the Lithuanian diaspora in Europe, she chronicles their rituals and collects their memories in an attempt to portray the “lost” generation that her parents belong to. Jokšė’s research originates in the idea of generational divide and cultural trauma but the notion of Unconditional Love is tranquil. It reaches beyond disappointment or conflict into a state of shared familiarity, where one is resigned, resting, joking, worrying, and sharing with each other.

Agnė Jokšė was born in Vilnius in 1993. She currently lives in Copenhagen where she conducts her studies at the Royal Danish Academy of Visual Arts. Prior to her studies in Copenhagen, Jokšė studied painting at Vilnius Academy of the Arts. In her work, she investigates questions surrounding experience, parallel history, entangled relations, queerness, and language. She usually works with writing, video, and performance.

NAC of Vilnius Academy of Arts offers space to professional artists and practitioners for focused and undisturbed work in Nida, a remote UNESCO World Heritage Site. NAC opened in 2011, it runs an international residency programme, the annual Nida Doctoral School, and initiates art, education, and research projects in Nida and elsewhere. The premiere of Unconditional Love marks the closing of more than a year process of developing the work in close collaboration with NAC team, Egija Inzule and Monika Kalinauskaitė, amidst the pandemic’s first, second and third waves as well as their lockdowns in Lithuania and Denmark.

Unconditional Love has been commissioned and developed by NAC of Vilnius Academy of Arts as part of the Today Is Our Tomorrow festival initiated by PUBLICS. The 2021 edition has been realised in collaboration with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Narva Art Residency and NAC.