Fotoğrafçı, Küratör, Kültür Yöneticisi / Photographer, Curator, Cultural Manager
LİTVANYA / LITHUANIAN
mindaugas@kavaliauskas.eu
Mindaugas Kavaliauskas Litvanyalı fotoğrafçı, fotoğraf küratörü ve kültür yöneticisidir. Lisans ve yüksek lisans derecelerini Kaunas'taki Vytautas Magnus Üniversitesi'nde Sanat Tarihi alanında aldı. Ayrıca ENSP Arles, ENSB-A Paris, Lozan Üniversitesi'nde sanat ve fotoğraf eğitimi aldı ve Rencontes d'Arles (Fransa) ve Musée de l'Elysée'de (Lozan) staj yaptı. KAUNAS PHOTO festivalinin (2004-2022) ve F Galerija'nın (Kaunas, 2004-2012) kurucusu ve yöneticisi, Litvanya Havacılık Müzesi'nin (2019-2024) direktörüdür.
Çalışmaları Litvanya, Avrupa ülkeleri, ABD ve Avustralya'da 30'dan fazla kişisel serginin yanı sıra çok sayıda kolektif sergide yer aldı. “Litvanya Fotoğrafçılığı” gibi sanatsal fotoğraf projelerinin küratörlüğünü yapmıştır. Litvanya'nın Fransa'daki Mevsimi (2024) için “Bakışların Yağmuru” gibi sanatsal fotoğraf projelerinin küratörlüğünü yapmıştır. Mindaugas Kavaliauskas, aralarında “Portrait of Kražiai”, “travel'AIR”, “Views of Welcome in Lithuania” çalışmalarının da bulunduğu dört monografik fotoğraf kitabı yayınlamıştır. Beşinci kitabı “A-SPOT: A Journey into the World of Airplane Spotting” Mart 2025'te yayınlanacak.
Havacılığa duyulan hayranlık, ilk uçan makinelerin havalanmasından bu yana süregelmektedir.
Uçak gözlemciliğinin belgesel fotoğrafçılığı, havaalanları çevresindeki kentsel, endüstriyel ve rekreasyonel alanların dinamik genişleme ve gelişimine tercüman olurken, jet çağı hızıyla birlikte, görüntüler, artık var olmayan ortamların belgelerine dönüşüyor, uçaklar fazlalık haline gelerek yok oluyor.
“A-Spot”, M. Kavaliauskas'ın insanoğlunun yolcu uçaklarıyla olan ilişkisini araştıran seyahat havası projesinin ikinci bölümüdür.
A-Spot, Belgesel Fotoğraf, Görsel Antropoloji, Görünenin Ötesi, Hayalin Peşinde, Uçak Gözlemciliği.
Photo by Mindaugas Kavaliauskas; From “A-Spot” series. While everyone on Maho beach is anxiously waiting for the arrival of the day (Boeing 747 by KLM) and rehearses the shots and selfies on the plane coming before Jumbo, a girl from Michigan stays calm and contemplates the seaview. SXM. 2016
Photo by Mindaugas Kavaliauskas; From “A-Spot” series. The Couple on the embankment of Marmara Sea enjoying the artificial sunset of landing lights of air planes lining up for the final approach to Istanbul Atatürk airport. IST. 2016
Photo by Mindaugas Kavaliauskas. From “A-Spot” series. The Young Men from Salvador playing football (soccer) in the park of Gravelly Point, near Ronald Reagan National airport. DCA. 2018
Admiration for aviation has been around ever since the first flying machines took to the air.
Documentary photography of plane-spotting translates the dynamic expansion and development of urban, industrial and recreational areas around airports and with the speed of jet age, images become documents of settings no longer existing, airplanes vanish into redundancy.
“A-Spot” is the second part of the travel’AIR project by M. Kavaliauskas, exploring man’s relationship with passenger aviation.
A-Spot, Documentary Photography, Visual Anthropology, Beyond Obvious, Chasing the Dream, Airlane Spotting.
Admiration for aviation has been around ever since the first flying machines took to the air. While many kids in the second half of the 20th century remember a weekend ritual of being taken by their parents to watch planes, today plane spotting has become a more complex phenomenon, composed of numerous wheres, whys, whens, whats, hows and wows.
Today, from Vilnius to Istanbul, from Auckland to Los Angeles, people come to areas near airports to take pictures, note the tail numbers of planes, combine the thrill of aviation viewing with other activities, such as eating and drinking, teaching their kids, romance and even therapy. The quest for proximity of airplanes might be either an ad-hoc event or of a lifetime project.
Airports are places where people say goodbye to loved ones before watching their planes depart, while others contemplate airliners coming and going in attempt to overcome their homesickness. For a true aviation geek, visiting one viewing area is but a small part of a greater pilgrimage to the next place of adventure, outside a different airport, maybe abroad or even on a different continent.
A decade spent photographically documenting the places and the ways people spend time in sight and feel of passenger airliners, traveling to 35 airports on 5 continents, revealed that plane spotting has a lot between the lines. Documentary photography of plane-spotting translates the dynamic expansion and development of urban, industrial and recreational areas around airports and with the speed of jet age, images become documents of settings no longer existing, airplanes vanish into redundancy.
"A-Spot" photographs accompanied by stories of their heroes are testimonies of the power of dreams of looking up to "huge flying objects" and quest for discoveries, thrill, but also overcoming homesickness, live moments of mourning, seek rest and hope. Presence of a picture from Ukraine that since 2022 has been suffering the brutal war reminds us about the dreams and hopes of the sky clear of rockets or drones, but the one with passenger airliners.
“A-Spot: A Journey into the World of Airplane Spotting”, a series of photographs was started in 2015 and became a book in 2025. “A-Spot” is the second part of the travel’AIR project by M. Kavaliauskas, exploring man’s relationship with passenger aviation.
"Mindaugas Kavaliauskas is Lithuanian photographer, curator of photography, cultural manager. He obtained his Bachelor and Master’s Degrees in Art History at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas. He also studied art and photography at ENSP Arles, ENSB-A Paris, University of Lausanne and was interning at Rencontes d'Arles (France) and Musée de l'Elysée (Lausanne). He was founder and director of KAUNAS PHOTO festival (2004-2022) and F Galerija (Kaunas, 2004-2012), director of Lithuanian Aviation Museum (2019-2024). His work has exhibited internationally in over 30 solo exhibitions in Lithuania, European countries, USA, Australia as well as in numerous collective exhibitions. He has curated artistic photographic projects, such as "Lithuanian Photography: Rain of Gazes" for the Lithuania's Season in France (2024). Mindaugas Kavaliauskas has published four monographical photo books, among them "Portrait of Kražiai", "travel'AIR", "Views of Welcome in Lithuania". His fifth book "A-SPOT: A Journey into the World of Airplane Spotting" appears in March, 2025.