Emilija Škarnulytė (b. 1987) is a Lithuanian-born artist and filmmaker. Working between documentary and imaginary realms, Škarnulytė makes films, installations, sculptures, drawings, and immersive time-based media that explore the entanglement of the human, the ecological, and the cosmic. Her work inhabits deep time, spanning geological epochs, submarine architectures, and post-anthropocentric futures to examine human and non-human histories. In her videos, viewers often encounter extreme or inaccessible environments: decommissioned nuclear power plants, deep-sea data storage, abandoned and forgotten underwater cities, endless desert landscapes, and uncanny natural phenomena. Inhabiting a future archeologist‘s perspective, the artist suggests that the worlds we imagine to be science fiction or fantasy are already to be found on our own planet. By combining poetic and analytic visual languages, Škarnulytė examines how infrastructures of power—military, ecological, and mythological—extend into unseen and unknowable territories of oceanic abyss, cosmic matter, and memory.

Škarnulytė has presented her work in major solo exhibitions, including at Tate St Ives (UK), Kunsthaus Graz (AT), Kunsthall Trondheim (NO), and Canal Projects (US). She has exhibited in numerous international group exhibitions, including at MoMA PS1 (US), Louisiana Museum of Modern Art (DK), Mori Art Museum (JP), and Kiasma (FI), and has participated in the Gwangju Biennale (KR), Helsinki Biennale (FI), Vilnius Biennale (LT), and the Henie Onstad Triennial for Photography and New Media (NO). She represented Lithuania at the XXII Triennale di Milano (IT) and in the Baltic Pavilion at the 2018 Venice Architecture Biennale. She is the recipient of the 2019 Future Generation Art Prize and the 2023 Ars Fennica Award.

Škarnulytė studied sculpture at the Brera Academy of Fine Arts in Milan (IT) and holds an MA from the Tromsø Academy of Contemporary Art (NO). She founded and currently co-directs Polar Film Lab, a collective for analogue film practice located in Tromsø (NO) and is a member of the artist duo New Mineral Collective, together with Tanya Busse.

Emilija Škarnulytė skarnulyte.emilija@gmail.com

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Stay inspired and keep up to date with the latest news, exhibitions and projects

currently:

Solo Exhibition - Emilija Škarnulytė at Tate St Ives, 6 December - 12 April 2026
Group Exhibition - The New Orchestra, Museo della Montagna (TO), 31 October 2025 - 31 May 2026

upcoming:

Solo exhibition - Lokremise, Kunstmuseum St.Gallen (CH), August 22 – November 8, 2026
Tethys
Emilija Škarnulytė
Tethys, 2024
14 minutes, 4K, 3-channel video installation
Tethys,” showcased at La Citadelle in Villefranche-sur-Mer as part of the Saison de la Lituanie en France 2024, prompts viewers to rethink the connections between the artificial and the natural, the cosmic and the earthly, myth and reality. The title references the inscription above the fortress entrance, “Tethys,” which alludes to an ancient Greek sea goddess and a primordial sea that existed long before present-day continents took shape. In the film, Škarnulytė embodies the mermaid chimera, navigating the azure waters and the ruins submerged beneath. While the mermaid is a recurring motif in her work, here she symbolizes Tethys, representing an ancient force linked to both the ocean and swirling galaxies, bridging the gap between a distant past and a post-human future.
Tethys was commissioned by La Citadelle – Centre d’art et Musées thanks to the support of Lietuvos kultūros institutas / Lithuanian Culture Institute and l’Institut Français. Exhibition curated by Camille Frasca and Mėta Valiušaitytė.
Written and directed by: Emilija Škarnulytė
Cinematographer: Eitvydas Doškus
Editing: Vytautas Tinteris
Composer: Tuomas A. Laitinen
Executive producer: Elena Veleckaitė, assisted by Deividas Katkus
Light design: Adomas Kaikaris
Goddess: Elena Veleckaitė
Drone Pilot: Davey Whitcraft, Vytautas Tinteris
Production: Mirror Matter Productions