It's a project about torture houses
and interrogation houses in the Soviet regime in Lithuania.
I grew up in the regime until I was eight
so I remember a little bit of it
In those times we were really oppressed
My father was Government security
My work became political through my father's death
He had a car crash which was never really explained
We always have thought that there was something more than just a car crash
Yeah, anyway
Researching the communist regime I came upon this huge archive
Homes used as interrogation and torture houses by the KGB
What surprised me is that no one seemed to know about it at all
I just knew that I needed to remind people of these places
I went to Lithuania, I re-photographed the interrogation and torture houses
I took those images and sent them to the wood carver in Lithuania
and then I photographed them again to make a new archive I guess
I have a very strange relationship with this wood carver because I have never met him
When they arrive for me it's quite exciting to find out what's in the box
he really just interprets them in his own way
Actually we did quite a good job at replicating it
it's even got all the details here
But what I love about this particular house is
the actual wood has its own mark on it, which I think is beautiful
It's got a lot of personal touch in it which is wonderful
In the Tate show there will be photographs of the houses
but there's also going to be the sculptures themselves and my notebooks
I think actually the process enriches the work
This is actually my first notebook
that was the first ever house I photographed and it was in 2007
In those places a lot of people who were tortured
were mostly children and mothers
I was quite shocked how forgotten this part of history is
The prints are very, very grey
I don't think history is ever black and white
I never want to preach what has happened because I don't really know
it's more for me to understand what happened in my own country
I'm really commenting on the space
and these buildings are the containers of what has happened
and the containers of memory
Now a lot of people live in these places which I find even more interesting
So they kind of re-cleansed themselves through time
In war there are so many causalities
A thousand people, it's a fact, a number
A person is a story
I try and make that one story
to allow people to access that event
with emotion and allow people to connect to it in a different way