As far back as in the 1930s, during the times of the Great Depres­sion in the Uni­ted Sta­tes, a group of pho­to­gra­phers such as Wal­ker Evans, Doro­thea Lan­ge, and Jack Dela­no, led by Roy Stry­ker, Head of the Farm Secu­ri­ty Admi­ni­stra­tion (FSA), kept restles­sly recor­ding views which were soon desti­ned to fade into obscu­ri­ty. The con­ti­nuous migra­tion of peo­ple moving around in search of easier con­di­tions of life was relen­tles­sly chan­ging the demo­gra­phi­cal map of the Sta­tes: home­steads, vil­la­ges, small towns were disap­pea­ring right befo­re the eyes. All this was pho­to­gra­phed and put into exten­si­ve archi­ves – the effort of tho­se pho­to­gra­phers pro­ved not to have been in vain.
A some­how dif­fe­rent pro­cess is ongoing in pre­sent-day Lithua­nia too. Nei­ther in the sco­pe nor the con­di­tions of life the­se situa­tions are com­pa­ra­ble, thou­gh some­thing still promp­ts us to look for simi­la­ri­ties.
Just within the last deca­des, con­ti­nuous migra­tion has cau­sed the popu­la­tion of Lithua­nia to shrink by almo­st one-sixth. Towns that have usur­ped the who­le eco­no­mics and are suc­king out young peo­ple to the cities as well as free migra­tion to the other EU coun­tries, all this is ine­xo­ra­bly chan­ging our coun­try­si­de. Just one que­stion ine­vi­ta­bly ari­ses: for how long will our forests and val­leys be ador­ned by views of home­steads and vil­la­ges – pla­ces whe­re a total­ly dif­fe­rent under­stan­ding of time and clo­se­ness still exists? For how long will the­re still be found pla­ces whe­re an unex­pec­ted visi­tor is met like a clo­se rela­ti­ve and eve­ry pas­ser-by is gree­ted with a heart­felt ‘hel­lo’?
Eve­ry time a thought like that cros­ses my mind, I, as a pho­to­gra­pher, am dri­ven by an instinct to hur­ry and turn tho­se sym­bols and pla­ces into some­thing more than just memo­ries in the sto­ries of futu­re grand­pa­ren­ts. Thou­gh a recor­ded ima­ge is inca­pa­ble of revi­ving what has been lost, it still lets us remem­ber some­thing that perhaps once, whi­le spee­ding by, momen­ta­ri­ly caught our eye at the road­si­de. May­be this monu­ment to the Lithua­nian coun­try­si­de will evo­ke some sen­ti­men­ta­li­ty from the viewer and touch tho­se dee­ply hid­den cor­ners in the memo­ry which we, see­min­gly inad­ver­ten­tly, have clo­sed up, being used to accept what can be gone very quic­kly.