LAK i (Lithuania) is a part of the larger ongoing three-part project, LAK, which follows migratory bird routes from Lithuania via Palestine and Lebanon to Sudan. Initiated in 2019, the project emerged from a need to counter the rise of negative nationalism in Eastern Europe and foster broader non-Western solidarities through more-than-human actors. When shared histories across different non-Western regions are in perpetual conflict, I look at birds to offer alternative ways of finding a common thread. If birds inhabit, traverse and are welcomed across different geographies with ritualistic regularity, perhaps our relationship with them, and hence with one another, could also be built not on geopolitical, but on geopoetic terms.

LAK i is a feature length experimental documentary exploring human connection, the fascination with birds, migration, and the paradoxical desire to nationalize them. Through a blend of dialogues, reflections, facts, and fiction, the film weaves together narratives on storks, migration, homeland, movement, biodiversity, and interdependence—transforming artistic work into a space for exchanging ideas and cultural knowledge. Self-produced in a DIY spirit, the film captures encounters with ornithologists, villagers, field workers, and elderly residents of agricultural lands, as well as a closed religious community near the Belarusian border. The soundtrack was composed by Andrius Arutiunian.

LAK film fragment (15min)

LAK full film (1h 13min)

Exhibited at Kaunas Artist House, Lithuania (2022); Verpejos Gallery, Marcinkonys, Lithuania (2023)