Under the Red Light

Romualdas Požerskis is one of Lithuania’s most renowned photographers. During the Soviet occupation, when it was forbidden to photograph the sea, religion and nakedness, Požerskis documented the yearning for freedom by Lithuanian youth. Tens of thousands of captured moments, a unique perspective, which at the time was prohibited from being displayed. Secretly listening to American rock music at night, unauthorized motorcycle rides by the sea and imagery as a form of protest. Despite strict Soviet censorship, the photographer captured and immortalized religious rituals, holy pilgrims, Lithuanian rural folk, small-town life and behind the scenes of the local art world. Požerskis’ camera also captured decisive moments in the process of Lithuania regaining its independence. In the artist’s photographs the everyday meets the sacred, revealing the fragility of human relationships, existential loneliness and striving for timelessness.

In the late 1960s in Lithuania, the so-called Lithuanian School of Photography emerged – a documentary, humanistic tradition that focussed on everyday life, the countryside, human relationships and individual experiences, and in doing so distinguished itself from the official, ideologically-construed representation of Soviet reality. The functional significance of this type of photography was also the preservation of Lithuanian national identity and traditional way of life: during the Soviet era, documenting national culture could be deemed to be indirect resistance. The works of Romualdas Požerskis precisely fit into this tradition.