Emilija Škarnulytė (Vilnius, Lithuania, 1987) produces immersive films and installations that combine the genres of documentary and fiction. Her works explore different notions of time, delving into inaccessible structures and spaces, in a kind of archeology of the future. Nuclear and military bases, submerged databases, and changing spaces are the backdrop to her videos. In some works, mythological figures such as mermaids appear, while in others, machines create amazing science fiction scenes. Thus, her works reflect on the marks humankind leaves on Earth, moving between geological and ecological elements, as well as between cosmic and political ones.

In the video installation Æqualia (2023) displayed here, the filming takes place at the famous Encontro das Águas [Meeting of Waters], where the Negro and Solimões rivers run side by side for 6 kilometers, before forming the Amazon near the city of Manaus. Škarnulytė appears in the video embodying a hybrid creature, half human and half fish, that swims in the confluence of waters of different temperatures and densities. The Negro River, warm and dark, carries organic matter from the forest; the Solimões, cold and milky, brings sediments from the Andes. Æqualia is the name of the mermaid character who encounters the pink river dolphins, crucial animals in Amazonian cosmologies. The soundtrack, composed by Jokūbas Čižikas, Savio de Queiroz, Thiago Lanis, and Vivian Caccuri, plays a significant role in the work, mixing electronic and forest sounds with the dolphins’ sonars, in rhythms that oscillate between calm and tension. In the video, a camera records the scene from an aerial view, and shortly after the moment when the mermaid artist meets the dolphins, the camera dives into the waters of the rivers. Months after filming, more than 300 dolphins died in the region, due to warming waters related to fires in the Amazon and climate change, in a tragic and real contemporary counterpoint to Škarnulytė’s fictional work.

More than just filming, the artist seeks to transform herself and be on the place’s scale, exploring the subjective qualities of her own experience there—the Meeting of Waters. Thus, Škarnulytė transcends the grandeur of nature by reflecting on human conflicts in the face of the unknown, myths, and environmental crisis, adding aesthetic enchantment to the awareness of threats.



Video Room: Emilija Škarnulytė is curated by Daniela Rodrigues, Supervisor of Mediation and Public Programs, MASP. The exhibition is part of the year devoted to Histories of Ecology, which includes solo shows by Abel Rodriguez, Clarissa Tossin, Claude Monet, Frans Krajcberg, Hulda Guzmán, Minerva Cuevas, Mulheres Atingidas por Barragens (MAB), Taniki Yanomami, as well as the group exhibition Histories of Ecology and shows in the Video Room by Inuk Silis Høegh, Janaina Wagner, Maya Watanabe, and Vídeo nas Aldeias.

Since 2019, MASP has had a sustainability workgroup and implemented actions such as decarbonization, the purchase of renewable energy, and a waste management program. In 2025, these initiatives will be added to the Histories of Ecology program. The new Pietro Maria Bardi building also incorporates sustainable solutions and has achieved the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) certification.