GATHERS OF VALUE
Aleknaičiai Space for Culture and Education (Akee) together with the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association (LTKMS) is organising a day camp for school children in Aleknaičiai village, Pakruojis district, in the territory of the former Aleknaičiai school and its surroundings, from 17-20 June 2024. The camp programme is designed and implemented by LIAA members Joana Kairienė ir Ieva Gražytė together with artist and educator Simona Čemoškaitė. The camp programme is curated by LIAA member Vilius Vaitiekūnas.
The theme of this year’s day camp is “Gathers of value”, inspired by the collections and exchanges that children make in their backyards, schools and playgrounds. Whether it’s the cards of cartoon characters, the collectible figurines encouraged by shops, or simply the pebbles that catch the eye, the sense of value and exchange is an unmarked part of any children’s playground. Taking into account the criteria children themselves often develop for assessing the collectible value of different objects and their innate desire to exchange, the creators of the camp programme, Joana Kairienė and Ieva Gražytė, have developed new research and educational methods that they will invite children to try out during the camp. During the four-day programme, students will explore the links between exchange and collectible value, and will learn about and try out different printmaking and sculpture-making techniques, as well as create their own value mechanisms. Participants will learn about different ways of creating value, participate in lectures on financial literacy and be invited to explore their own creativity through the different activities of the programme.
Ieva Gražytė is a researcher of digital culture, analysing the value of art and the mechanisms of value formation in the context of neoliberal capitalism and digital technologies. Member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association. She studied at Vilnius Academy of Arts and Kaunas University of Technology, and currently spends most of her time in East Asia. Using different forms of writing as methods of artistic practice, I. Gražytė bases her artistic research on socio-economic and socio-political indicators.
Joana Kairienė is an artist based in Vilnius. Since 2013, she has been a member of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association. She graduated from the VAA Graphic Arts Department with a Bachelor’s and Master’s degree. She uses memory and inner feeling as an impulse for the emergence of ideas in her work. She draws on her personal experience, in which she seeks connections with the processes taking place in her environment. She is interested in the theme of memory and inheritance. In her work, she often uses traditional printmaking techniques and their interpretations as tools to discover or replicate images she has already seen. In addition to printmaking, Kairienė also uses sound and textiles.
Vilius Vaitiekūnas is a creator and educator of various cultural activities and formats. In 2018, he received his Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Minerva Academy in The Netherlands, and completed a pre-graduate programme in Art and Cognitive Science at the University of Groningen. Vaitiekūnas is an alumnus of Rupert Alternative Education (2021) and Inland Academy (2022), and is currently studying in the Master of Arts in Arts and Media programme at Aalto University, Helsinki. In 2019, together with his friends and colleagues, he founded Akee, a cultural and educational space in Aleknaičiai village, Pakruojis district, which connects visual art, dance and architecture creators. He has worked as a curator of education and community engagement activities at the Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius, and assisted in the Children’s Forest Pavilion project at the Lithuanian National Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale 2023. In 2024, Vaitiekūnas is the head of educational programmes at Stasys Museum and the curator of the Architecture Foundation’s project “Experiments Platform”.
Akee is a community initiative that is being developed in the Aleknaičiai village, in the Pakruojis district, on the site of a former school built in the late 1930s. Its goal is to enrich the discourse on Lithuanian and international culture related to non-urban areas and to create opportunities for cultural producers and researchers to implement socially responsible and site sensitive projects in non-urban areas. This initiative also aims to increase access to culture products in the Šiauliai region.
Organised by Aleknaičiai Space for Culture and Education (Akee) together with the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association.
The activities of LIAA are funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.
Design – Lina Vyšniauskaitė
Documentation: Ieva Gražytė and Vilius Vaitiekūnas
