About Marija

Marija Nemcenko Arzanych is a multidisciplinary artist with a research-based practice in archival material, film, installation, creative and critical writing, and projects connecting socially engaged art to civic life. Her multilayered practice aims to activate the interlinks between migration, nature, and nation-state, while critically attending to the construct of a ‘periphery’. In a world driven by narratives from and about the ‘centre’, she asks what knowledge could arise from the ‘peripheral points’? What could an elderly lady in the street market teach us, what’s behind the national symbols’ facade and what wisdom could come from migrating weeds? The work that occurs is marked by high contrasts and humour driven by these clashes, as well as the bright, eclectic aesthetics of every day. Here, disparate narratives, languages, and imagery are montaged across contrasting mediums and ideas, reflecting the richness and chaos of a peripheral thought.

Marija Nemcenko is a Ph.D. candidate at Vilnius Art Academy, a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists‘ Association (LIAA) and Scottish Artists Union, and ½ of BRUT Collective, working across art, architecture, and socially engaged practice fields. She has exhibited nationally and internationally, including Orlando Museum of Art, Florida, Art Gallery of Alberta, Edmonton, Gallerie delle Prigioni, Treviso, Glasgow International Biennial, Swallow gallery, Vilnius, and A.M. Qattan Foundation, Ramallah, Palestine.