Vaida Tamoševičiūtė

Work for Live Art Denmark
2014 “A Piece of my Heart” at Hitparaden 2

A piece of my heart
In her outdoor performance, Vaida lies naked on the dirty ground of a courtyard of the venue. She slowly inflates a rubber beach ball designed as a model of earth, and then proceeds to, just as slowly, cut the deflated ball into small pieces with a razor blade.

Due to nudity, the video of the performance was age restricted by Youtube and can not be shared here. To view, please use this link.

Quite a while after we put the video online, something weird and wonderful happened. It became a Youtube sensation and went viral. It is still, by a factor of thousands, our most watched video. As of 23. November 2020, 4.607.899 people have watched it, and it received more than 10.000 thumbs up and more then 5.000 thumbs down. People from around the world still engage in discussing it controversially today. Some of the best comments can be found below.

Photo: Peter Lind

About the Artist
Vaida is an interdisciplinary artist from Lithuania. She graduated in painting from the Vilnius Art Academy. Since 2007, she creates performances alone and in collaboration with other artists. Since 2012, she organises the international performance and live art festival „CREATurE Live Art“ together with Daina Pupkevičiūtė and artists’ union gallery Meno parkas.

Vaida participates in exhibitions, festivals and other artistic events since 2006. She has had four solo exhibitions in Lithuania and Estonia and participated in more than 60 artistic events nationally and internationally (Estonia, Germany, Portugal, Mexico, Sweden, Finland).

The main themes of her work are relationships between people, society, complexes, self-mutilation, routine. Her performances are often slow and repetitive, constructed to resemble of ritual behavior. The aesthetic images that are produced are always an important focus, as she still works from a painters point of view. Often the visual is complemented with sound. Vaida has worked with Lithuanian musicians including Daina Dieva, Sovijus and Vytautas Stankus (Nahash).

Vaida’s website is of the extremely basic one page CV kind, here is a vimeo channel with some of her performances, and here is a (not quite up to date) website for her festival.

The best Youtube comments
Here’s a selection of our favorites, all in original spelling and grammar. For the full experience, check out the video on Youtube and scroll. And scroll…

hugh holt
My humble view…..She breathes life into her world ….nothing hidden from the crowd….then slowly destroys her world….with everyone watching. Sound familiar to anyone? I love her body reference to the Dutch Masters. (Du Champ Pissed away his world in a urinal ….remember?)

Rasa Quame.
woman in society

Divine Bara
she don’t want a woman to ruled in the most powerful nation, but it’s not her decision, she had been paid, look at what she is doing with the ” globe ”

Raj Kumar Jnanranjan
Beautiful performance

Jose Valdivia
I’ll try…. mother earth & feminist destroying it

Mouhamed Diaw
Formidable

Pausian Khai
good

Agus Setiawan
so sweet

ibrahim sütcü
i think,the artist try to say that world is in the women of hands,and she was fall down .Later the world is terminated.i understand we sholdnt hurt women…

John Rasmussen
Never mind the haters! To me this was touching on several levels. — I trust your arm healed. 🙂

Giuseppe Cammalleri
come ha ragione questa ragazza il nostro bel pianeta lo stiamo distruggendo brava ha tanto coraggio
Google translate: as he is right this girl our beautiful planet we are destroying good has such courage

Jozef Juszczyk
BRAWO !!!!!

Paul Zapata
el que se ensalza será humillado y el que se humilla será ensalzado
google translate something like: who exalts himself will be humbled and whoever humbles himself will be exalted

VIRENDRA VERMA
Good

Rejal Arbee
is this real life or acting. if real life how can people be so uncaring

Rick N.
why are they applauding??…she cut herself and shredded a balloon with a razor???.

UltimateGamer623
this is terriable where are the cops or ambulance and why are these people help her cover up and get off the ground

redwow
I just got suckered into watching this. I was looking for some hero to rescue her.

fasx56
If someone is naked in the streets for whatever reason the police would be called, this has to be a phony set up.

Rico Gutierrez
She is exposing yourself in the most vulnerable way that she can by being nude. She cut herself and is bleeding while tearing up the globe. if bleeding for your art does not make it valid I don’t know what does.

Bert Praxenthaler
Very impressive, this extreme exposure!

Costel Miraculosul
Can you see?…What she is trying to show us is that: the whole Earth is loved by her! (as a naked woman!)-but…nobody else love the planet! All people stairs at her,while drinking and eating! (and making nothing,while she began to destroy the material of planet!).It’s too much complexity..???…for the ordinary people!

Gordon Cairns
Meant to start: “The World Loves us…”

EvilNecroid
humans r good at destroying the world i guess

Ibrahim Kimba
ils faut respect la femme
google translate something like: they must respect women

Kin Walkup
She is trying to tell everyone that if you giav a woman the world she will tear it apart. So are you voting for Hillary so she can tear our world apart what’s left of it.
This is a wake up call America. Don’t let Hillary take over or we are all doomed.

Alex Chang
Only if you are a Christian, then you will know what she is doing.
At the every first beginning when God creates the world, everything is so pure and beautiful, including nudity.
Only when Adam and Eve betrayed God, sin reign the world and even nudity became ashamed.
The lady cuts the earth into pieces indicates the dead end of the world resulted from all kinds of sins against God’s righteousness. Then a new world which is God’s kingdom will be reborn again. Everything will revive as the first beginning and only God’s beloved sons and daughters would be permitted to live in the new world with God forever. There will be no sins anymore!

Fausto Ramirez
Un buen performance..la verdad el ser humano con toda la inteligencia q tiene no ha hecho nada más que acabar con su mundo natural y el hábitat de muchas generaciones y muchos otros seres vivos…seremos capaces de recomponer aún nuestro mundo?
google translate something like: Performance..la really good man with all the intelligence q has done nothing more than to end his natural world and the habitat of many generations and many other living beings … we are able to still rebuild our world?

Clinton Lewis
we were all born into this world making it what it is today by destroying it.

Sandro Vieira
E arte mas é uma realidade do dia adia bom legal e o diferente que nos causa impacto e crítico questionável parabéns
google translate something like: And art but it is a reality of the day good legal delays and different that causes impact and critical questionable congratulations

Alceu Sanches
Grande artista – gostei muito
google translate something like: Great artist – liked

Antonio Josimar
E’ uma obra linda.
google translate something like: It is a beautiful work.

Deusdedit silva dos santos
ESTE VIDEO MOSTRA A REALIDADE DA INDIFERENÇA HUMANA, MUITO TRISTE.
google translate something like: THIS VIDEO SHOWS THE REALITY OF HUMAN INDIFFERENCE, VERY SAD.

msyahwey4ever
Powerful woman! She tore the world apart with her own two hands and everyone watched!

StonerDog
Love it. We’re all thorn apart when we’re actually all the same.

kuntaJumnong Buatongjun
ผู้แสดงเป็นผู้มีความคิดสูงมากผมคิดส่วนตัว รูปร่างไม่มีอะไรทุกส่วนเป็นธรรมชาติเกิดขึ้นทุกคนเหมือนกัน แต่คนเป็นผู้สร้างโลก กำหนดให้โลกเป็นรูปแบบ ของทุกสรรพสิ่งที่คนเป็นผู้สร้าง และแบ่งปันเท่าเทียมและไม่เท่าเทียม เป็นเรื่องยากที่จะให้ตรงกับต้องการได้ เมื่อโลกเจริญเต็มที่แล้ว จะสลายลงย่อยยับเป็นชิ้นเล็กๆ กลับมาเป็นสภาพความต้องการใหม่ๆต่อไป…
google translate something like: The show is a personal opinion, I think very highly. Every shape, nothing is happening all the same. But as the Creator The world is a model Of all the things that people are the creators. And share equally and inequality It is difficult to meet the requirements. When full-grown, world To break down catastrophically small pieces. Back to the new requirements of the following …

Angga Yullizar Wibowo
nice

Gerard Grimardia
C cette vie,ce souffle qu’elle donnait à la planète que l’on n’a pas respecté.
google translate something like: C this life breath she gave to the world that we did not respect

Jose Mejia
when those who are suffering from depression and start cutting themselves, what they do is cutting every possibility or opportunity that the world could offer them.
naked because she’s not afraid to show that depression is a social problem and requires our attention and consideration and support to others that go through this difficulties.
I respect the opinion of others but for me that’s what I get out of it

Beobachter1927
… Ausdruck pathologischer Ratlosigkeit – auf beiden Seiten der “Bühne”

samuel tokoni
A great psychic. Showing and telling humanity of how not to destroy itself on earth, in this apocalyptic times. She is a fabulous, silent messenger chosen by the Gods. A great beautiful lady. Peace and Love.