Ieva Lygnugarytė Revives Forgotten Renaissance Bison at Venice Oratorio dei Crociferi

From May 1 to 31, 2026, the Oratorio dei Crociferi in Venice will host "Carmen: Utopias of Belonging," a video installation by Lithuanian artist Ieva Lygnugarytė, curated by Meral Karacaoğlan. The work revisits a little-known 1523 episode: Nicolaus Hussovianus wrote a poem about the European bison intended as part of a diplomatic gift from the Grand Duchy of Lithuania to Pope Leo X, accompanied by a stuffed bison. The gift never arrived because Leo X died before delivery, and the event faded into obscurity. Lygnugarytė transforms this story into a meditation on cultural visibility, belonging, and historical marginalization. The video shows the poet gradually morphing into a bison, symbolizing his struggle for recognition beyond northeastern Europe. The choice of the Oratorio dei Crociferi—a historic, off-the-beaten-path religious space—amplifies themes of marginality, access, and invisibility. The European bison also evokes the Białowieża Forest, straddling the Belarus-Poland border, a region marked by political tensions and exclusion. The installation creates a short circuit between the failed 16th-century attempt to reach Rome and contemporary Eastern European geographies, questioning how peripheral cultures seek recognition without being absorbed or exoticized.