Creativity Kiosk: Interview with Donara Manuk

Hi, it’s nice to get to know you better.Tell us, what do you think about pho­to­graphy and paint­ing, when did you dis­cover both and how do they com­ple­ment each other?

I think that they are par­al­lel. With one of them we cap­ture images (we can say that it’s like the image memory) and with the other we cre­ate the image on cloth. Sometimes a pho­to­graph becomes a sketch. At first, of course, I dis­covered paint­ing because I daub from a young age and my pho­to­graphy was influ­enced by a pho­to­graphy lec­ture in the third course of my stud­ies. From then on pho­to­graphy and paint­ing became two integ­ral things in my life. Moreover, I fal­low impulses. I paint, pho­to­graph or work in any other way only when the “time is right”.

You men­tioned that you like con­tro­ver­sial top­ics. Tell us more about it!

I’m inter­ested in the human being, the body, psy­cho­logy and patho­logy. Psychological aber­ra­tions, a wounded spir­itual state, fantas­ies interest me as well as situ­ations when a “nor­mal” watches whether he is influ­enced by a “non – nor­mal” and the rela­tion between neg­at­ive psy­cho­lo­gical nuances and society.

You also men­tioned that one of your top­ics was rejec­ted when you wanted to con­tinue master’s stud­ies in Lithuania?

Yes, I recently received a com­ment that I chose a topic that was too dif­fi­cult. As I already men­tioned, my topic was sup­posed to ana­lyze the rela­tion between the psy­cho­lo­gic­ally incap­able and nor­mal people. I think that such top­ics are rejec­ted because Lithuania is quite dark as it is. It’s a small and unhappy coun­try. Financial crimes are hap­pen­ing in it, people lack tol­er­ance and they see only what is set from some­where (maybe left from the soviet times), once estab­lished “nor­mal norm”.

What inspires you?

Ideas come by them­selves. It hap­pens that, when you’re driv­ing, read­ing, walk­ing, you see a new place and you spend some time in that place and then you see and know how the upcom­ing work will look like and what you want to do. At the time I am nur­tur­ing couple of ideas this way. They don’t need to be stim­u­lated. You just need to avoid the routine because then you can’t lift your hands to cre­ate any more.

How much does pir­acy and new media influ­enced your work?

It seems to me that, if artists in Lithuania would pir­ate from each other, they would find one another later to clear the air. However, even if a per­son is try­ing to copy or steal an idea, he is still going to look at it through his prism and the pieces won’t be the same. Well, and tech­no­lo­gies take up quite a bit of space in my life. It’s a great envir­on­ment (e.g. the inter­net) to search for new things, artists that are new to me, films, and psy­cho­ther­apy art­icles. It’s great because all of these things inspire to create.

If you could choose the per­fect scen­ario, where would you be after five years?

My biggest wish is to stay in Kaunas and cre­ate new pieces. And I also want to expand my know­ledge. I would not need any­thing else.

Thank you!

About author:

Gintarė Žitkevičiūtė
Gintare Zitkeviciute is Art Pit’s thinker and doer. In her work practise, she values lean approach, creativity and quick decisions. She doesn't like working with random people and thinks that a team is a heart of successful project. For that reason, she carefully picks people she works with on everyday basis. She is mostly interested in innovatio... Read further >