Until March 8, exhibition “[M] CITY PHOTOGRAPHER Romas Linionis” is open at Kaunas Photography Gallery.
It is a fragment of the author’s long-term creative practice dedicated to the city M – Marijampolė. The project balances between documentary photography and personal visual research, revealing the city as a continuously changing living fabric.
Linionis has been photographing Marijampolė for more than several decades. In his work, the city unfolds through everyday scenes, architecture, public spaces, and the presence of people within them. The author’s photographs reveal the city through time-sensitive, consistent observation. Marijampolė appears here as a multilayered space where different historical periods, social experiences, and urban transformations intersect.
Specific locations in the city frequently recur in the author’s photographs – “Gulbė,” the “Sūduva” cinema, the bus station, and V. Kudirka Street. These spaces function as reference points, allowing the viewer to observe the city’s transformations and the rhythm of its daily life. In Linionis’ photographs, Marijampolė exists as a living organism. The project also highlights the theme of regional identity – in the author’s work, Marijampolė emerges as the cultural center of Sūduva, a city with its own scale, temporality, and collective memory shaped by everyday experiences and local history.
The author’s photographs are characterized by a restrained visual language, a rhythm of repetition, and subtle humor. This aesthetic avoids the heroization or dramatization of the city and invites the viewer into a slow, attentive mode of seeing. In Linionis’ work, the city becomes a living archive in which memory remains unfinished.
Romas Linionis was born in 1951 in Marijampolė, where he continues to live and work. In the 1970s, he worked as a design engineer. Since 1974, he led the “Sūduva” photo club and later the Marijampolė Photography Gallery. From 1999, he worked for more than two decades at the Marijampolė Regional History Museum. Since 1979, he has been a member of the Lithuanian Photographers’ Association. His artistic practice has developed through a long-term relationship with the photographed place and a consistent documentary approach.
Exhibition is supported by Kaunas City Municipality and Lithuanian Councel for Culture. Patron of Kaunas Photography Gallery is AON.