‘That Strange Art’, an educational project that is unique in the Baltic states, is at its climactic point: on November 13, the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius will open an exhibition created by twenty-three teenagers. The young creators have done everything by themselves: they devised the exhibition’s theme and idea, selected artworks and communicated with the artists, created the architecture and design of the exhibition, conducted audience research, and explored the possibilities of social marketing.
A press conference for the exhibition will be held in the auditorium of the National Gallery of Art on November 12, at 4pm. Participants of the press conference include: Chief curator of NGA Lolita Jablonskienė, participants of the project: Ona Akelė, Roberta Alksnytė, Aneta Beginskaitė, Lijana Chmilkevičiūtė, Rovena Karvelytė, Emilija Lanevskaja, Elzė Stanulionytė, Marijonas Verbel.
‘We hope that this project will motivate the young creators of the exhibition to continue to try new things, discuss what they care about, and remember how much can be said with the help of art’ says Lolita Jablonskienė, the director of the National Gallery of Art.
The participants themselves believe that this experience is truly valuable and differs from the educational experiences found at school and in after-school activities. In this project, they directly faced emerging problems, learned how to deal with them effectively, communicated with each other, and developed their responsibility and cooperation skills. ‘You can’t learn these kinds of things from textbooks,’ says Eglė Nedzinskaitė, the gallery educator and founder of this project.
‘From quarantine-style calls, to creative workshops and face-to-face discussions – this whole time we were preparing for the exhibition. Everything that you’ll see has been done by us: the designs, architecture, descriptions of the artworks, and even social media posts,’ says Emilija, a member of architects’ team.
‘Our exhibition is about people’s inner and outer worlds. Most likely everyone thinks about these things, but no one talks about them. We would like visitors to take their time in the exhibition, to reflect on the things that are usually too scary to think about. We especially want to welcome the younger generation, because we think that they will feel understood here,’ explains curator Ona, another participant.
One of the participants’ aims was to create an exhibition that would be interesting and relevant to other teenagers, as there is an assumption that art is hard to understand or simply not interesting enough for young people. The marketing team looked at the process of creating the exhibition as if it was the process of creating a product, carrying out marketing research on the target audience and forming a unique selling proposition. They sought to answer the question, why should young people visit the exhibition? This is how singer-songwriter Gabrielė Vilkickytė and her music appeared in the project. Her songs have been paired with artworks as well as certain areas of the exhibition. The participants believe that this will help visitors to understand the art in their own way, and discover new meanings. Audience research shows that there is a lack of sensual experience in most exhibitions, which is why it has been implemented in this one. Here there are different surfaces you can touch, there are things to look at and listen to, and most importantly, once a month there will be special events wherein the creators will work with visitors on new ways of viewing and re-reading the works of art.
Soon you will be able to see for yourself how all of this comes together in the exhibition: explore the collection of selected artworks; experience how the teenagers have managed the space, light, and colours; and discover new perspectives on the world of art. You can visit ‘That Strange Art’ from November 13, 2021 until February 6, 2022.
Participating artists: Žygimantas Augustinas, Irma Balakauskaitė, Alvīne Bautra, Violeta Bubelytė, Vitalijus Butyrinas, Ramūnas Danisevičius, Alfonsas Dargis, Kristina Inčiūraitė, Vytautas Jurkūnas, Linas Jusionis, Gudrun Krebitz, Andrius Kviliūnas, Vitas Luckus, Aurelija Maknytė, Antanas Martinaitis, Rūtė Merk, Henrikas Natalevičius, Tymonas Niesiolovskis, Damir Očko, Vygantas Paukštė, Audronė Petrašiūnaitė, Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė, Edmundas Saladžius, Dominykas Sidorovas, Eglė Vertelkaitė, Ugnė Žilytė.
Exhibition lenders: Lewben Art Foundation, Lietuvos meno pažinimo centras „Tartle“, MO muziejus, sixpackfilm.com, Boris Symulevič, Eduardas Vaitkus.
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This project is implemented by the National Art Gallery.
This project is funded by the Lithuanian Cultural Council.
Sponsors: EXTERUS, Fundermax
Partner LRT
Contact information:Eglė Nedzinskaitė, egle.nedzinskaite@ndg.lt, +37060034790
Greta Leigaitė / +37060649102 /
National Gallery of Art, Konstitucijos Ave. 22, LT-08105 Vilnius
