Displayed on linen-covered tables are šakotis cakes in various sizes: some small enough to rest in the palm of a hand, others rising proudly above the visitors’ heads. Some are real and edible, traditionally handmade from flour, eggs, butter, sugar, and cream. Others, though identical in form, are shaped from an equally traditional sculptural material — copper.

Although the first written recipe for the Lithuanian šakotis dates back to 1830, the tradition is believed to be much older. Derived from the German layered cake Baumkuchen, the Lithuanian version is distinguished from its regional variations by its long, prominent spikes — seen as a mark of high-quality ingredients, their generous proportions, and the baker’s craftsmanship. These spikes are formed by layering batter onto a rotating spit, allowing the cake to „grow“ like a tree, its branches and annual rings symbolizing the flourishing of nature.

During the Soviet era, šakotis became a secular and universal substitute for various religious and folk traditions. It replaced elaborate wedding cakes once imbued with both pagan and Christian symbolism, as well as a rich, ritualized process of preparation. In some cases — particularly during farewell ceremonies — šakotis was served broken, its festive and formal appearance deliberately disrupted, symbolically “cutting down” the tree of life and evoking the natural cycle of life and death.

Serapinas submerges the real cakes in a copper sulfate solution, where over several days, electrolysis — a chemical process in which electrically charged metal particles drift and settle — coats them in a delicate yet durable shell of copper, just firm enough to hold their form. Once plated, the šakotis are fired in a high-temperature ceramic kiln, where the heat consumes all organic material, leaving behind a hollow, charred copper shell.

This transformation — form born through destruction — is a recurring gesture in Serapinas’s practice; here, it can be seen as an almost alchemical transmutation or ritualistic offering — transforming the organic and ephemeral, food meant to be consumed, into something enduring and purely representational. Unlike traditional casting, which relies on fixed molds, electrolysis echoes the logic of baking itself — symbolically adding another growth ring to the tree’s core — allowing each šakotis to retain its distinctive contours marked by time, touch, and gravity. Though each bronze šakotis is unique, the artist treats them as modular units — elements in an ever-expanding sculptural vocabulary, endlessly reconfigurable in space.

Culinary heritage and the ritual of food preparation and consumption are deeply interwoven with Serapinas’s broader artistic inquiries. One of his long-standing interests lies in vernacular wooden architecture, which he sees as a quiet expression of modest, resourceful ingenuity. These houses — still scattered across Lithuania and other regional peripheries, yet rapidly disappearing — become, in his work, an antidote to the architecture of power and the dominance of contemporary industrial production. It is no coincidence that, alongside the šakotis sculptures, the exhibition also includes two charred, rectangular fragments of wooden shingle rooftops — objects that share with the bronzed cakes the logic of preservation through destruction.

In Šakotis, Serapinas focuses on a specific case study and offers a homage to the resilience of vernacular craft traditions — the intimate, collective rituals of making and sharing — as quiet acts of resistance to the relentless momentum of today’s material and symbolic production.

Text by Edgaras Gerasimovičius