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Carmen (2026) is a video installation by artist Ieva Lygnugarytė (b. 1998) that reactivates a little-known story from the early sixteenth century.
In 1523, the poet Nicolaus Hussovianus wrote A Poem about the Size, the Ferocity, and the Hunting of the Bison. As a diplomatic gesture, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania intended to send this poem together with a straw-stuffed European bison to Pope Leo X. The attempt sought to introduce a peripheral European region to the cultural center of Renaissance Rome. Alas, the gift never fulfilled its purpose. The pope died before it arrived, leaving both the poem and the animal unreceived as intended. The episode faded from historical memory.
Lygnugarytė’s film reinterprets this moment by reviving the poet as a figure seeking recognition beyond the margins of North-Eastern Europe. As the work unfolds, he gradually transforms into the bison itself, a shift that may imagine a desire to embody the symbol meant to represent his region, and to secure a place…
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Press Release
Carmen (2026) is a video installation by artist Ieva Lygnugarytė (b. 1998) that reactivates a little-known story from the early sixteenth century.
In 1523, the poet Nicolaus Hussovianus wrote A Poem about the Size, the Ferocity, and the Hunting of the Bison. As a diplomatic gesture, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania intended to send this poem together with a straw-stuffed European bison to Pope Leo X. The attempt sought to introduce a peripheral European region to the cultural center of Renaissance Rome. Alas, the gift never fulfilled its purpose. The pope died before it arrived, leaving both the poem and the animal unreceived as intended. The episode faded from historical memory.
Lygnugarytė’s film reinterprets this moment by reviving the poet as a figure seeking recognition beyond the margins of North-Eastern Europe. As the work unfolds, he gradually transforms into the bison itself, a shift that may imagine a desire to embody the symbol meant to represent his region, and to secure a place…















