23/05/2026
In Berlin, I found an unexpected consolation at Hamburger Bahnhof, standing inside the sculptural and polyphonic installation, ‘We Make Years Out of Hours’ by Lina Lapelytė. Faced with the very real prospect of missing this year’s Venice Biennale, there was something quietly restorative about encountering the work of a Golden Lion winner here instead.
A few years ago, I had the pleasure of seeing Sun & Sea (Marina) — the extraordinary work that won Lapelytė the Golden Lion at Venice in 2019 — so I was excited to experience more from the Lithuanian artist. Immersive, multisensory, and deeply interactive, her latest installation is everything one might expect from her practice. Yet the simplicity of a 2,500-square-metre hall filled with 400,000 small wooden cubes, inviting visitors to collectively build and dismantle structures, completely blew me away. Both visually and sonically beautiful, the work also carries a powerful message about community, participation, and the transformative potential of playful collective action.