Schismatics [skɪzˈmatɪks, sɪzˈmatɪks] –– leftovers of history, futurists from the past who were considered by their contemporaries to be dissidents, heretics, fanatics, and perverts –– liminal minds who succeeded to break through deep-rooted knowledge.

Schismatics consists of 10 short stories, in a fictitious way dealing with forgotten historical personas. Among them, artist Goda Palekaitė includes Mary Anning –– an amateur discoverer of dinosaurs, Emanuel Swedenborg –– a mystic who empirically explored the architecture of heaven, and Essad Bey –– a Jewish-Muslim writer and orientalist. Here their lives are revived and balance between the lines of history and story.

The book fuses elements of fiction, academic writing, and artistic research, and intertwines with rumours, forgeries, and inventions. Previously, its characters and narratives have already appeared in Palekaitė’s performances and installations, which are presented in the middle of this bilingual edition. In the introductory essay, Valerio Del Baglivo analyses the author’s exploration of facts and fiction, the mechanisms of knowledge production, and the trans-chronological perception of time. At the end of the book, Monika Lipšic’s ‘Riddle’ reflects on a ‘schismatic poetics’.

How to cure the present from nostalgia?

Throughout her work, Palekaitė explores how history can become ‘sick’ by being infected with hegemonic discourses and restrictive academic methods of validating truth, corruptions and pure inventions. […] In this book, the artist has established an extensive archive of the lives of marginalised historical figures, who resisted and questioned cultural clichés and political ideologies.

– Curator Valerio Del Baglivo

Goda Palekaitė is a contemporary artist and researcher whose work combines visual, literary, performative and anthropological practices. Exploring the politics of historical narratives, the agency of dreams and collective imagination, and social conditions of creativity, her work evolves around long-term projects that manifest as performances, scenographies, installations, and texts. Her performances, solo and group shows are being presented internationally. In 2019 Goda Palekaitė received The Golden Stage Cross and the Young Artist’s Prize for her artistic contributions across disciplines.