Marija Nemčenko (1989) is a Lithuanian artist, writer, and creative learning activities facilitator currently working in Glasgow, Scotland. She received her MFA from Glasgow School of Art in 2016 and BA(Hons) in Sculpture from Camberwell College of Arts in 2013. Despite Glasgow being her base, her working environment shifts between Glasgow, Kaunas (Lithuania), and Berlin, where she exhibits and devises workshops, discussions, and activities.
Drawing from her personal experience of growing up in a post-Soviet Bloc country and the subsequent cultural displacement of having moved to the UK, Nemčenko questions the binary constructs of East and West. This personal displacement, which is often both the best and worst friend of an immigrant, has led her to question her own “otherness” both in relation to her homeland and her destination of choice. She uses the framework of Orientalism to discuss the formation of fragmented, abstracted, and frequently racist understanding of (Middle) Eastern (European) migrants and their identities.
Recent exhibition venues include: Civic Room (Glasgow, Scotland), 2019; Berlin Project Space Festival, 2018; and Glasgow International 2018. In 2019 Nemčenko participated in the A.M Qattan and E-flux residency program Ways of Traveling in Ramallah, Palestine.