Exhibition
Exhibition "That flower looks like a drone"
About this event
The paintings in the exhibition 'That Flower Looks Like a Drone' were created during a painting workshop session that Danish artist Eske Touborg held in Kyiv for Ukrainian children liberated from Russian-occupied territories. During the session, a 20-meter canvas was unrolled, and acrylic and spray paints were provided. Time spent at the canvas turned into vibrant, joyful creative sessions for the children, where they could, at least for a moment, be children again.
After the workshop, Touborg brought the canvas back to Denmark, cut out ten rectangular fragments, stretched them over frames, and finished the paintings by painting blurred portraits of the children over the backgrounds they had created themselves.
The works merge the children's playful, brightly colored backgrounds with Touborg's blurred portraits. This creates a strong contrast between the erased identities, shaped by years of Russian indoctrination, and a childhood that is inevitably pushed into the background.
The blurred faces become a visual metaphor for the systematic destruction of the identities of many abducted children: they are given new names, and new languages and loyalties are imposed upon them. At a time when identity in Ukraine is becoming a battlefield, the joyful backgrounds created by the children sound like a persistent reminder of their right to simply be children.
The exhibition title, 'That Flower Looks Like a Drone', comes from the words of one of the children, spontaneously uttered about a flower they had painted.
The project is non-profit; all proceeds from the sale of the works will be donated to the organization 'Save Ukraine'.
The exhibition opens at the Bastion of the Vilnius Defensive Wall on May 20, 2026, at 6:00 PM and will run until September 6, 2026.
Organizer
National Museum of Lithuania
Sponsor
Danish Cultural Institute in Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania
Information Partner
JCDecaux
Author
Eske Touborg
Project Manager
Indrė Gervelytė
Architect and Graphic Designer
Ieva Cicėnaitė
Editor
Marytė Slušinskaitė
