The Big Action

A community intervention in the form of 26,652 custom printed carrier bags, created in collaboration with the students from the local high school

Distributed by the Aibe shop in memory of the 9200 murdered on that day

 

The Project

The shop stands on the site of the Big Action.  The day on which one third of the ghetto population was sent to  the IXth fort and murdered.  There is no memorial or any sign here to mark this event.

For the duration of the Biennial the shop will present customers with a free carrier bag. These bags bear the words ‘Į KAIRĘ’ or ‘Į DEŠINĘ’ – ‘TO THE LEFT’ or ‘TO THE RIGHT’.  19,741 bags are marked ‘Į DEŠINĘ’ and 9,200 ‘Į KAIRĘ’.  This represents the number of people sent to the right who survived that day, and the number sent to the left, who were murdered.  Each bag also has a hand written number, written by the students who attend the school on the site, so that every individual present on that day is commemorated.

Click on the image below to take you to the Kauno Bienalė website where you can listen to survivors testimony about the Big Action.