In October 2025 I participated in the 12th international competitive exhibition of aluminium works The COMEL Vanna Migliorin Contemporary Art Award, organized by COMEL Industrie. The COMEL Award exhibition took place in ‘Spazio COMEL’, a contemporary art gallery located in Via Neghelli, no° 68 in Latina (Italy).
I was awarded with a special mention of the Jury for the work “Structural Object, Alternatives”: “For the refined balance between the constructed and the imagined, between structure and sign, developed in an aluminium architecture that is both allusive and visual, evoking urban contexts and, at the same time, emotional states—motifs of meaning and soul”.
Th Jury consisted of Matilde Di Muro, art historian, critic, and journalist; Francesca Tuscano, art critic and historian; Maria Gabriella Mazzola, entrepreneur and sponsor of the award; Giorgio Agnisola, president and art critic; and Franco Marrocco, artist and Director of the Brera Academy of Fine Arts,.
The questions were asked by Ilaria Ferri. She currently works as a cultural journalist and press officer for the COMEL Award. She graduated from the DAMS (Department of Music and Performing Arts) of Roma University.
The interview with illustrations is transferred from the Comel Art Award website. You will find a direct link to the website below the interview.
Interview with Sigita Dackevičiūtė
by Ilaria Ferri
Sigita Dackevičiūtė is a Lithuanian artist, member of the Lithuanian Artists’ Association, and a graduate in Sculpture from the Vilnius Academy of Arts (1977– 1983). Active as an art teacher since 1983, her practice spans sculpture, installations and graphic art, exploring the dialogue between nature and culture. She has held numerous solo and group exhibitions in Lithuania and abroad, and participated in major international biennials and triennials across Europe, Asia and the Americas. Awards include the Palm Art Award (2015), grants from the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture, and honors from the Artists’ Association. Her works also feature in public spaces.
“Structural object: Alternatives”, the work with which you received the Special Mention at the 12th edition of the COMEL Award, features a series of riveted aluminium elements that form a complex, almost living organism. How did the idea for this structure come about, and what does the concept of “alternatives” represent for you?
Recently I have been interested in creating abstract forms and exploring their possibilities and limits. When you imagine in that direction for a while, general visions and compositions begin to emerge. This is how Structural Object: Alternatives was created. At first I had a vague idea of elongated geometric elements moving through space one after another; as I worked, the volumes became simpler and the movement more complex. It was as if the elements had acquired a kind of life, swaying and interacting. I strive for an object or installation to be a sufficiently complex compositional structure that engages our gaze and senses in the movement of forms in space. The work arose from my resistance to direct references and my desire to create shapes that allow broader and more diverse interpretations.
The movement of the forms dictated the title Alternatives. We live a life of dilemmas, created by the human intellect’s ability to contemplate possibilities and weigh consequences for ourselves, others, and the environment. Alternatives also represent the possibility of creativity, giving us the opportunity to deviate from recognized paths, ways of thinking or feeling, and to discover untried routes that open new horizons. The oscillation between two possibilities can also express a desire to embrace both at once, or an indecision about which is more valuable.
Aluminium plays a central role in this work: modular, lightweight, industrial, yet capable of generating almost organic forms. How did you come to work with this material, and what expressive possibilities did you discover through it?
In my previous art projects I explored bronze, brass, wood, plastic, and steel. Aluminium began to interest me because of its specific aura, the emotional mood it creates. The silverish‑grey surface reminds me of graphite drawings or graphic prints. Aluminium does not have the sweetness or pretentiousness of yellowish bronze; it is more neutral and does not add unnecessary connotations. Its simplicity does not dominate the form, and this neutrality, as well as the range of cool grey tones, is what I like most.
Aluminium sheet attracted my attention because it allows easy cutting of geometric shapes and the construction of complex yet lightweight structures. The emotional effect of the coldly shining surface can be enhanced with engraving, graphic lines, patterns, or tool marks. I also like the connotation of aluminium as a dynamic material. Metals are characterized by the free mobility of their outer electrons, forming a “mobile cloud”. These free electrons make the metal flexible and ductile: aluminium allows for the formation of convex shapes, which I intend to explore more.
Structural Object: Alternatives
Object with a map
You speak of entanglements between society, nature, and technology that alter our states of being. How do these ideas translate into forms, volumes, and rhythms in your sculptures?
These entanglement ideas were important in my ecological exhibition Ecological Alterations (2021). Entanglements also mean entanglements of forms, where elements from different spheres—nature and technology—participate in one installation: a birch trunk, metallic QR‑code structures, free‑flowing plastic forms, and constructions of plastic plates. We sometimes feel the intersection of nature and technology as a conflict, and these intersections inspire the search for forms that reflect this conflict. To express this, I transformed selected images and feelings into forms, rhythms, and materials. In Nature and Civilisation I, reflections on the life and death of a silver fox taken from nature and locked in a cage turn into the metallic form of the fox with sharp, piercing shapes, accompanied by a “fir tree” made of air‑filtering aluminium mesh. The floating beauty of a transparent plastic mannequin with a fox head refers to the limelight of fashion shows and contrasts with the painful theme of animal killing for the fashion industry.
In Hierarchy, the chorus of squealing wax rat‑men metaphorically personifies impersonal structures of control and exploitation. Our “imprisonment” on screens I expressed through the image of a screaming gorgon Medusa in Screen Light, made of plastic plates. In Greek myth, when Medusa looks into someone’s eyes, a person turns to stone, just as we freeze when we stare into screens. In my recent exhibition Ecological Variations (2024), allusions to ecological catastrophe turned into sci‑fi spaceship models, Objects with Maps, which could become temporary homes in the event of disaster. Man is inseparable from nature, but cannot live without his technical and electronic extensions. Today’s hybridizations I expressed through “hybrid subjects‑objects”, such as an anthropo‑zoomorphic sphinx with airplane wings. I strive to express my ideas through synthetic images and forms that are themselves intersections.
4. For many years you have explored the relationship between nature and culture, between organic elements and constructed structures. What drives you to return to this theme, and how has it evolved over time?
We have a highly developed civilization and amazing achievements of technology and science. However, no less a wonder is nature, the planetary system in the vast cosmos, and the flourishing of fragile life on our planet. I never cease to be amazed by the precision, diversity, and adaptability of nature. Using nature only as a resource seems to me to show an exploitative attitude. I see the relationship between nature and humans as an interconnected web that is being damaged by pollution and the loss of species diversity. I keep coming back to this topic because I think we underestimate the importance of nature. Ultimately, even consciousness was born within the structures of nature. Art forms can reflect this intersection of civilization and nature and show some resistance by involving the viewer in confronting difficult intersections.
Over time, my understanding of ecological ideas has become more nuanced. I now see ecological intersections where I did not notice them before: the overwhelming flow of news, the dominance of virtual screen time, our engagement in digital life that takes us further away from nature. Bruno Latour suggested that one reason for our ignorance of ecological problems may be our ignorance of our material basis: modernity created a false distinction between nature and society, leading to an ignorance of our dependence on nature.
My sculpture Newsfeed is an improvisation on this subject: an open head structure filled with plastic tubes with digital prints from the newsfeed. We become like a container of digital images and knowledge. However, digital reality is a reality of pixels on a screen, which can be changed, corrected, and easily distorted.
Hierarchy
Newsfeed
In your work you use different materials — metals, industrial elements, systems of joints — transforming them into highly sensitive forms. How do you choose the right material for a project, and what role do tactility, weight, resistance, and modularity play in your creative process?
The choice of material is based on constant research and reflection on its expressive properties. Each material has its own connotations: what it conveys, how it yields to the form, how it resonates with the idea. I strive to make the material contribute to the conceptual dimension of the work, while also allowing the intended form to manifest freely. For the ecological exhibition, I chose plastic to talk about the artificiality of the relationship and the inorganic condition of an animal in the fashion industry. Plastics are easily modeled by heating but always carry the stamp of an unnatural, polluting material.
For my abstract structures, I chose aluminium because of its allusion to universality—it is one of the most widespread metals on Earth—and because it is easily processed and joined. When producing a work, I constantly hold it in my hands, processing every detail. Even making temporary models, I stretch parts in space, embracing the work with my hands. My body participates in creation together with imagination. The viewer’s haptic sensation is expressed mainly through the eyes: they follow the same paths, visually touching surfaces and textures. For 3D art, haptic visuality can be extremely important.
I like creating heavier objects that submit to gravity. However, a stable presence seems to require dynamics through forms and rhythms, which fill my hunger for movement. I also like a resisting material that you have to overcome, whose surface you activate through hand‑work. These are not forms created with a mouse click; they are formed with physical force—drilling, carving, hammering. The forms bear traces of bodily movement, a kind of subconscious expressiveness. In my ecological works, modular constructions referred to human creation—QR‑code rhythms or plastic‑plate constructions—while in nature forms grow. In my abstract works I use modularity to escape unnecessary details and concentrate on abstract ideas. Modularity allows me to arrange forms differently in space, create rhythms and dynamics, and give the composition direction.
Your abstract structures often seem suspended between order and chaos, as if they were systems in dynamic equilibrium. How important is the tension between stability and transformation in your work?
Tension is a fact of our lives, because we live at the junction of diverse factors, and their balance is fragile. This tension is the engine of creativity, the source of questions, and the inspiration for the search for answers. Creativity often arises from such junctions. The ontology of becoming appeals to me, and my objects maintain a state of transition. Dynamics express the processual nature of life and fill the viewer with a sense of unfolding.
A stationary object is externally stable, but the duration of transition must be expressed through the movement of forms, which creates tension and intrigue. I arrange stable forms to suggest potential motion through space. The viewer’s eye follows these lines, perceiving hidden potentiality.
Nature and Civilization
Screenlight Medusa
What does it mean for you to make art today? What function do you attribute to a work of art: testimony, reflection, transformation, or something else?
Creating art means participating in the spiritual, non‑pragmatic, reflective part of our lives which provides meaning and significance. Art as the triad of idea‑form‑material is a unique language. To make art is to create meaningful structures that reflect phenomena of life and what resonates with our consciousness. Each artist is a person of their time, confronted with specific tensions that demand new forms of expression.
With my ecological exhibition, I wanted to ask how art can resist anthropocentrism and propose a network of interconnections. I was interested in how forms themselves can become “critical”, how they can address us and make us think. My abstract structures have a different function: they invite us into the sphere of freedom of thought and expression, beyond words. Even abstract works have moods that can be linked to concrete events. Abstract art helps move away from simplistic narratives. I believe art has the mission to engage viewers in reflection and in the search for alternatives.
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