Dalija Kaukėnaitė
hopecore
17.09.2026–08.11.2026
curated by Ginevra Ludovici
opening on September 17 – 6-9 pm
hopecore is a solo exhibition by Dalija Kaukėnaitė curated by Ginevra Ludovici.
Centred around a newly commissioned site-specific installation and an artist’s book, the show takes hopecore – an internet-born culture of radical sincerity, vulnerability, and optimism – as a point of departure to reflect on contemporary forms of emotional circulation, collective reassurance, and resistance to cynicism and the endless cycle of doomscrolling.
Designed to match the dimensions of a smartphone, the artist’s book brings together memes, social media posts, quotations, images, and fragments of everyday conversations collected by Kaukėnaitė, translating the continuous flow of the digital feed into a tangible and portable archive. Conceived by the artist as an “emergency hope restorer,” the publication gathers materials that move between intimacy and collective experience, humour and earnestness, the personal and the algorithmic.
At 10 documents, Kaukėnaitė transforms the exhibition space into a temporary infrastructure, giving spatial form to a distinct imaginary of relationality, intimacy, and care. The immersive environment brings together several elements, including a newly produced site-specific work developed in collaboration with Basak Tuna, extending the visual and affective language of hopecore beyond the screen and into physical space. The exhibition will be accompanied by a public programme of events and conversations exploring the cultural, political, and emotional conditions from which these forms of online optimism emerge.
hopecore is part of the Lithuanian Culture in Italy 2025–2026 program. The Lithuanian Culture in Italy 2025–2026 program is implemented by the Lithuanian Culture Institute and the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Italian Republic.
Dalija Kaukėnaitė (Vilnius, 1995) is a visual artist currently based in Rome. With a background in graphic design and art direction, her practice emerges from the observation of everyday life, whose meanings she reworks through visual research. Her work moves fluidly across different media, guided more by concept and context than by form. She has exhibited at Circolo Scandinavo, COSMO Trastevere, Spazio Y, AWAI, and PAV – Parco Arte Vivente, and has participated in urban display projects such as Oripeau in Nantes and Montréal.
