Artist‘s book launch
Friday, January 22 at 6pm at the CAC Café

Mirjam Wirz
FLASH BAR

Photography: Mirjam Wirz and „flash bar“ participants
Texts: Mirjam Wirz, Maria Bustnes
Publication design: Joseph Miceli
80 pages
ISBN 978-9986-957-44-7
Published by Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius, 2009–2010
With the support of Lithuanian Ministry of Culture


The title “Flash Bar” describes a series of events created especially for Vilnius by the Swiss photographer Mirjam Wirz. In between 2006 and 2008 together with Augustinas Beinaravičius, Julija Goyd and a changing group of others she was searching for semi-public locations in Vilnius where they would build a bar from the material found on the spot. The idea to invite people to those places, such as the abandoned cab centre, the freshly privatized soccer stadium or one of the last unlocked stairwells of all centrally located apartment buildings, started with discontent with recent changes in organization of public space in Vilnius and the new restrictions imposed on it – the changes that have roughly coincided with the country joining the EU. “The chaos slowly gave way to the streamlined organisation of public space, and not in a way conducive to society. It’s the same all over the world, and it’s annoying everywhere,“ writes Mirjam Wirz. It did not take long until those who have been to a Flash Bar at least once started suggesting new locations for it. The bilingual publication documents six Flash Bars that mark a distinct moment in the history in the city‘s history.

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The setup was big this time. The bar was even announced on the radio, which, I hoped, would not mean a visit by the forces of law and order.
The bar was installed in a minibus, the sound system stood on the delivery platform and the path to it was cloaked with smoke, sound and light. It was a film noir tunnel, right in the middle of the city. I’ve always felt that Vilnius has a resemblance to the heroes of film noir: hard-boiled and attractive. (Mirjam Wirz, from the „Flash Bar“ publication)

Flash Bar is an organization moving from location to location through the city, referring to neon lightning and comics' aesthetics inviting you to become involved in taking use of spaces you already know in unusual ways.
The Flash Bar never happens in the same place twice, or at least not in the same way. The project could be described as a way to enjoy something internally consistent like taking part in a game you played before, or like transgression without a hassle: doing something that we are not supposed to do according to the "rules", yes, but not if we have to suffer for it. Then we find another way to do it. Walking around the problem somehow, but not letting already established ways of doing things dictate actions, methods, ideas etc.
Like an image of a temporary crowd. (Maria Bustnes, from the „Flash Bar“ publication)

Photography is not only a technical tool for producing images: it is a thinking-technique, in order to report about the world, show your attitude, express your way of thinking, engage yourself, record what is happening, and document actions that move you out of the observing position. As a photographer one normally has to keep out of things in order to get close to them. (Mirjam Wirz, from the CAC TV programme „Flash Bar: They Drive By Night“)