Vasario 16-osios gimnazijos istorija: Mokykla Rūke: siurrealistes Fotografijos

V16-osios  gimnazijos istoria nuotraukose siurrealistes Dainos (Cikagos siurrealistisu grupes nare, lietuve siurrealiste). Pries kelis metusas aplaunkiau Lampertheim-Huettenfeld. As atsibudau viena ryta: miestelis mane pasitiko paskendes ruke. As pasiemiau savo fotoaperata ir isejau pasivaikscioti dviem valandom. Ka as pamaciau kai nuejau i mokyklos teritorija, mane suzavejo. Bokstas kuris yra lietuviu bendruomenes ikona, buvo apsiaustas balto debesies.

History in Photos by Lithuanian Surrealist Daina Almario-Kopp (member of Chicago Surrealist Group, Lietuviska surrealiste).
I visited Lampertheim-Huettenfeld a few years back. I woke one morning to find the town thick with fog. I grabbed my camera and went for a two hour walk. What I saw once I got to the school's campus was mesmerizing. The tower, which is an icon in the Lithuanian community, was cloaked in white. The fog symbolizes how memory clouds our recollections of the past. As an ex-student of the school, I feel the first photo best represents my memories of living there. Time is strange and ephemeral; so is the sliver in time we call photography.  
Privates Litauisches Gymnasium im Nebel.
I have not named the people in these pictures unless I have their permission to do so.

"As the Fog Lifted..."

Vasario 16 Gimnazija, early 1970s (above..
I didn't take this photo)
 

Vasario 16 Gimnazija, late 1980s with carved wooden cross (above)

The chaos after the boy's dormitory burned down
in the middle of the night; firepeople in the background, rubble in the foreground. 
Someone woke us up our room at night yelling "Feuer!" 
That was how I learned the German word for "fire." No one was hurt, thankfully.
It ended up on the German news. That entire day we were in shock (Šerlokas Holmsas - Benedict Cumberbatch - BBC, give us your blanket!). 

Twelve students, myself included, went on a school trip to Rome. This was on the occasion of the 500th anniversary of the death of Saint Kazimir (St Kazimieras; 1458-1484), the patron saint of Lithuania. The students and a handful of Lithuanians had a private audience with Pope John Paul II later that week, 
on 4 March, 1984.
"When the soviets closed the Cathedral of Vilnius in 1948 the coffin with the body of St. Casimir was moved to the church of St apostles Peter and Paul. After the political change, the coffin was brought back to the Cathedral in a big and solemn procession and celebration on March 4, 1989." Quoted from http://www.lcn.lt/en/bl/sventieji/kazimieras/

After the fire, the school built this building to hold classes in while the boys
 slept in the actual old school building.
I had originally cut out the background so the pic would fit in my photo album.
Fortunately, I had saved it. This is it reattached.

I'm on the left. On the left is where original school building where the boys
slept in while the burned building was  restored. In the back is the girl's dormitory.
This was before they built an adjacent co-ed dormitory to the girl's dorm. Summer, 1984.

This is the school building from a view showing the teachers'
apartments on the left.

Outside the shop the students, across the street from my favourite hangout, the Bruno's Pizza in Huttenfeld.
Remember the Spagetti Eis? Yum. 1986

Just visiting.; seeing off friends going on a school trip. At the entrance gate, 1986.

Me visiting a friend from V16 who lived in Berlin, 1987.
The Berlin Wall was still up then.

Checkpoint Charlie, West Berlin, 1987.

Me at the west-east crossing point of Checkpoint Charlie in Berlin, 1987.

I love using reflections in photography. See my surrealist experimental self-portraits 

V16 in the early 2000s

To view my art, check out 

my illuminated dream manuscript, 

experimental surrealist self portraits

and fashion design and period/character costuming

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STRANGE INTERLUDE: My Vaudeville inspired band, Hypnagogic Telegram, is going VIRAL on Youtube. Check out my Lithuanian song, Svejotoje, below. Viral Chaplin dance below that.

Songs in German, Lithuanian, French & English.

<---- View YOUTUBE VIDEO here.
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