Almost a year later and with hours of planning and video calling, we co-led a week of creative workshops with teenagers from the Ukrainian Centre in Vilnius, Lithuania - a city many Ukrainians had sought refuge in due to the ongoing military invasion.
Having registered over 70,000 Ukrainian citizens since February 2022 with 25,000 being under 18, the war in Ukraine and the widespread displacement caused by the relentless Russian military attacks can be felt in every thread of Lithuanian urban fabric. Amidst the wider challenges of providing consistent psychological, legal and more specifically pedagogical support to Ukrainian communities, particularly younger generations, Ukrainian Centre has been at the forefront of enhancing more meaningful and inclusive integration of Ukrainian refugees into their new physical and social environments. Established in cooperation with the Ukrainian Embassy and Vytautas Magnus University, the centre facilitates cultural, educational and other social opportunities in Vilnius, providing their residents resources and space to learn, connect and share.
Coming together with Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Ukrainian Centre, the participatory programme was co-led together with Marija, local artists, and staff from both institutions. Collectively, we created a structure for participants to experiment with various art forms whilst developing propositional, technical and communication skills to creatively reflect on their immediate lived environment.
Curated workshops and activities were site-specific and focussed on the Vilnius Central Railway Station; a place of familiar and strange encounters, of arriving and departing, of being in transit. Stitched together by leftovers, fragments, rituals, routines and improvisations that form people’s day-to-day realities, these sessions offered an opportunity to create fantastical worlds, tell new stories and propose alternative imaginaries for this site, how it functions and who it belongs to.
Through writing, image, sound and other media, participants were encouraged to develop their reflective and propositional skills to observe, read and think creatively about their lived environment. Throughout the programme they were invited to combine these different creative practices to develop the stories they wanted to tell. As participants were keen to engage in every stage of the production process, this approach was also applied during the curation of their group exhibition aimed to host and display ideas, conversations and playful materials produced throughout the programme
During the opening evening, Marija welcomed the large turn out; it was the highest number of people in the nine years the gallery has been open to the public. It was delightful to watch parents discovering the potential of their children’s creativity and all guests engaging actively with the exhibition. The participants were visibly proud to show off their achievements and their parents shared with us some of the positive outcomes:
Whilst the participatory programme was carefully structured and planned, the outcomes of the project were not anticipated in advance and for us the value came from just being in the same space.
For Markas, developing these provocations, learning resources and methodologies was also an opportunity to reconnect with Vilnius, their home city, inviting participants to formulate their own experiences and interpretations of the city’s unique landscapes:
With Markas, the group to engage in an emotional mapping activity; marking and archiving their experiences of Vilnius. Participants were invited to work with very fragmented (and sometimes incomplete) maps, focusing specifically on community spaces and spaces of care available to them in Vilnius, allowing participants to shape their own interpretations of those terms. The underpinning reflections and motifs would later inform the worldbuilding exercises as teenagers used extracts from Ukrainian poetry, archival paintings depicting urban life in Vilnius and their own experiences of the city to reimagine the railway station, moulding new characters and speculating upon their collective futures.
To continue building a colourful and imaginative portrait of the site, sound artist and illustrator Cecilia Noiraud of Hungry Eyes Studio invited participants to go on a sonic treasure hunt, opening their ears and tuning into the sounds that can usually be ignored, capturing their feelings and associations with the Vilnius Railway Station.
Participants’ cultural and personal experiences and perspectives came to the forefront during a session focusing on words and images led by Silke. Participants used photography to interpret the city, capturing its symbolic meanings and exploring the self in relation to the external world.
Moving from the familiar use of their smartphones, the group then explored traditional printmaking in a workshop led by Marija with the aim to inspire participants to rethink conventional, direct ways of visual creation, portraying a character active in their city using wooden letters.
After working with each other for almost one week, participants had built trust and were comfortable in each other's company. This was quite an important ingredient for the concluding workshop which invited participants to use bodily and interactive practices to highlight the current state of being. Textile artists Jelena Škulienė and Aleksas Gailieša from Vilnius Academy of Arts brought participants together for a collective activity where each person left their body shape through stitching, application, print –and the emotions accompanying them in Vilnius and their experiences during the week.
Co-curated by its participants, the exhibition fromNovember 9 – December 8, 2023 at 5malunai gallery displayed the ideas, conversations and playful materials produced throughout the programme.
The project has brought a closer relationship between Central Saint Martins, Vilnius Academy of Arts and the Vilnius Ukrainian Centre and brought the gallery its first experience of hosting participatory activity. In conjunction with the educational programme and exhibition, a Christmas art fair took place in the same space, fundraising for Ukraine.