Rock subculture in Žilvinas Glušinskas’ photographs: building communal capital through creative documentary

Abstract

The historical background of the rock subculture’s political engagement and cultural relevance in Lithuania, along with photography’s role in shaping and establishing society’s collective identity, suggests that the study of contemporary photography related to this subculture may offer insights into broader societal developments and photography’s function within them. Building on this premise, the article explores Žilvinas Glušinskas’ photography series The Bash at Mekanikas’ Fazenda (orig. in Lithuanian (irregular language use with jargon): Tūsas pas Mekaniką fazendoje, 2019–2024) with the aim of defining how photography represents and shapes a specific rock subculture community and its connection to wider society today. To address this, the study analyses the documentary, artistic and cultural aspects of Glušinskas’ works, as well as the different contexts and media through which they are disseminated. The research is based on sociologist Sarah Thornton’s notion of subcultural capital, which in turn stems from the concept of cultural capital defined by sociologist Pierre Bourdieu. The article concludes with a statement that creativity in photography, combined with its documentary value and the dissemination of photographs through mass and micro media, becomes a tool for generating communal capital – a symbolic meaning shared by a group of people, binding them into a community in a diverse and fragmented society.