On January 27, 2025, the exhibition “I Often Forget” by Lithuanian American artist Jonas Kulikauskas opened at the Exhibition Hall of the National Library of Lithuania. Using a WWII-era lens and a modern 8 x 10-inch camera, the artist embarked on a journey to capture today’s life in the former Vilna Ghetto.
The photographs are displayed as objects, inviting visitors to experience them in a tactile way. Attached to tables and pedestals, binders with photographic silver prints, which combine contemporary scenes with historical descriptions of the specific location and testimonies of survivors, present harrowing memories of the Vilna Ghetto, where tens of thousands of Jews were forcibly held.
The installations illuminate the history, conflicts, resistance, survival, confusion, and trauma associated with the Holocaust, historical silence, and ethnic and cultural desecration. The exhibition pays tribute to the oldest and most significant monument to Litvak Jews, the Great Synagogue of Vilnius, as well as to the tens of thousands of people murdered in the Paneriai Forest during the Holocaust.
Jonas Kulikauskas is an interdisciplinary artist. His research-based practice critically examines communities, traditions, and institutions. Themes of historical silence, identity, and kindness dominate his work. Kulikauskas is a Fulbright recipient and award-winning author. His works are in the permanent collections of the National Museum of American History, the Smithsonian, and the National M. K. Čiurlionis Museum of Art. As a visiting lecturer, he has been lecturing at ArtCenter College of Design in Pasadena, California.