Texts from Jonas Basanavičius, From the Life of Ghosts and Devils, 1903
The empirical mindset has deeply shaped how we see the spirit world. This perspective often reduces the idea of spirit to mere neurological phenomena nothing more than the result of brain activity, rather than a metaphysical or independent entity. However, pre-Christian ancient Baltic culture, such as the concept of vėlė a spirit or soul of the deceased reflect a very different worldview. The vėlė was seen as a real, lingering presence that continued to exist beyond physical death, interacting with the living and the natural world.
These spirits were not mere shadows; they were vibrant, moving through the world with purpose. The Veles didn’t always wander alone; they traveled in flocks great and small, following paths of their own, appearing to the living when the homes were still standing. But if a house or a building blocked their way, the storms would rise at night, tearing off the roof as if to clear their path.
The flight of the Veles was not silent. It filled the air with a roar, and as they passed, it was as though the firewood darkened in their wake. They would gather from one cemetery and travel on, visiting the spirits of their loved ones in other burial sites. But their journey didn’t end there. In the evenings, they would roam the forests of both the living and the dead, riding horses through the air, hunting wild game with the light of flickering flames, the sounds of dogs, and laughter sending signals through the night.
In the places where the living and the dead intersect, the cemeteries, songs, and hymns often filled the air. There, the Veles continued their rituals, singing, holding masses, and marking their presence both beneath the earth and in the open air. The boundaries between life and death were not always clear, and the Veles were proof of that.
In ancient times bad people’s ghost spirit would reborn on earth as all kinds of animals, trees, rocks: squatting on creaking trees, rustling rivers, boiling pots on fire, smoke coming out of barn or somewhere under the treshhold, others live in graveyards, others come to torture humans for all kinds of sins.. the spirits of all those, even though it would have been more honorable, whose bodies were not buried in a "holy" place, restless, play tricks on people through dreams or in other ways, until their bodies are properly buried in the earth
In Lithuanian folklore, there are tales where a man gains the power to see ghosts by connecting with a howling dog. In one story, a man peers through the ear of a howling dog and glimpses a terrifying, otherworldly figure. In another, he steps on the dog’s tail or leg, and by looking through the gap in the dog’s ear, he unlocks the ability to see spirits forever.
In the Eastern Highlands, some versions speak of a man who looks through the dog’s ears or even between its legs the so called “four-legged dog” to glimpse the unseen. Meanwhile, in Samogitia, the power comes not from sight, but from touch. A man rubs himself with the tears of a howling dog and, from that moment, becomes haunted by the ability to see ghosts. In one particularly vivid Samogitian tale, the man goes so far as to beat the dog until it sheds tears, then rubs them on his eyes transforming into a clairvoyant for life.
If a dog barks at night, you should not send it off, because it sees the souls that are suffering in the forest.
“In certain places, even recently in Latvia, after the burial, bowls with food were placed on the grave; to drive away evil spirits, they would fire guns, and on the way home, where the feast was held, they would race horses. Before the farewell, one or another companion of the deceased would cut the rooster's throat and throw it on the ground, and people would walk over the still-moving body. The meat of the rooster would then be eaten, and its spirit would turn into a horse, which the deceased could use in the afterlife if necessary. On the way back home after the burial, some people would break branches from trees so that the deceased could hang his clothes on them until the day of judgment.”
Texts taken from Jonas Basanavičius, From the Life of Ghosts and Devils, 1903
Kamilė Pikelytė is an artist currently based in Vilnius, Lithuania. Working across many mediums, she has recently focused on performance and sculpture. Her practice uses found digital and physical remnants to examine how ecological and social systems conceal inconvenient truths. Through zoomorphic and humanoid representations, Kamilė explores the obscure frameworks underlying our understanding of the “other.” Her works create an abstracted fantasy in which assembled fragments form their own strange emotional logic.
Victoria Björk is a visual artist from Reykjavík, Iceland.
In her artistic practice, Victoria explores the intricate relationships between time and nature, nurture and destruction. She works with the poetics of space, dualities and symbolism, and brings forth narratives through fragments that manifest as sculptures, scenographies, poems, and performances. Victoria is currently based in Hamburg, Germany.
Paula Zvane is a latvian artist currently based in London.
Working with various artistic means and materials sculpturally, such as metals, furs, oils and various fabrics, as well as expressing her ideas through drawing and painting, Paula Zvane develops a common basis for human and non-human (animal, surreal) phenomena in the environment. Zvane is forever busy with questioning - how to make materials emotional and how to change their aggregate states, how to transform one into another.
