A Longer Road: A Discussion on Opportunities for Culture Production in the Regions

17 December 2025, Wednesday, 18:30
National Gallery of Art, Konstitucijos Ave. 22, Vilnius

Participants: Laura Garbštienė, Vytautas Michelkevičius, Jonas Žukauskas
Moderator: Vilius Vaitiekūnas

The third discussion in the series A Longer Road will focus on contemporary cultural practices in the regions as a process that often requires alternative paths—ones that diverge from the habitual modes of operation and creative practices of major urban cultural institutions. The regions are becoming places where various symptoms and expectations of today’s world intersect: from EU social and cultural development strategies to the economic and environmental transformations brought about by “gigafactories” rising along the roadside.

This dynamic encourages the search for new models of working—within creative practice, within the institutional structures that support it, and beyond them. Out of these overlapping and mutually reinforcing trajectories emerge spaces in which artists, urbanists, and cultural producers can meaningfully contribute to shaping local futures and the culture that takes root there.

The event is free and does not require registration.

LAURA GARBŠTIENĖ

Laura Garbštienė is an interdisciplinary artist and curator living and working in the village of Šklėriai, Varėna district. She earned her Master’s degree in Textiles from the Vilnius Academy of Arts in 2000. Her artistic practice features institution-critical humor, explorations of ecological themes, and a critical stance toward consumerism. Her works have been exhibited at the Contemporary Art Centre and the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius, Rauma Biennale Balticum in Finland (2004), the Prague Biennale (2007), the Liverpool Biennial (2010), the Museum of Photography in Seoul (2021), and elsewhere. Her video work A Film About an Unknown Artist (2009) received a Special Mention from the international jury and the International Critics’ Prize (FIPRESCI Prize) at the Oberhausen International Short Film Festival.

In 2017, Garbštienė founded Verpėjos—an art initiative in Dzūkija dedicated to exploring and rethinking traditional rural life and nature conservation, enabling discourse on processes and transformations on both local and global scales. Since 2019, Verpėjos has curated the Marcinkonys Station Gallery, and since 2020, an international artist residency in Kabeliai village. In 2024, Garbštienė received the highest award of the Lithuanian Ministry of Culture—the Badge of Honour “Carry Your Light and Believe.”

DR. VYTAUTAS MICHELKEVIČIUS

Vytautas Michelkevičius is a curator, researcher, and artist; an editor and author of books; a Doctor of Humanities and Professor at the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VDA). His research, curatorial practice, and teaching have evolved from expanded-field photography, media art, and media theory toward unstable and social art forms, artistic research, mapping, and the relationship between research and fiction. Michelkevičius curates exhibitions, symposia, and unexpected situations across diverse contexts: from the Lithuanian Pavilion at the 56th Venice Art Biennale (Dainius Liškevičius, Museum, 2015) and the doctoral exhibition Desktop (2017) to projects at the spaces Malonioji 6 and SODAS 4.

From 2010 to 2019, he served as Artistic Director of the Nida Art Colony of VDA and curated nine editions of the Inter-Format symposium. Later he initiated the festival ūmėdė.lt in Vilnius. Recently, he has been exploring the intersections of somatic practices, forests, traditional cultures, and art. He can perform site-specific sauna rituals while avoiding excessive esotericism.

VILIUS VAITIEKŪNAS

Vilius Vaitiekūnas is an art educator and cultural practitioner living in Vilnius and in Aleknaičiai village, Pakruojis district. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Fine Arts from Minerva Academy (the Netherlands) and completed the pre-master’s programme in Art and Cognition at the University of Groningen. Vilius is also an alumnus of the alternative education programme at Rupert (2021) and the Inland Academy (2022). He is currently pursuing a Master’s degree at Aalto University in Helsinki, focusing on locality and the rural within contemporary culture.

Vaitiekūnas is the founder of the Aleknaičiai culture and education space Akee. Akee is a community-driven initiative aimed at enriching Lithuanian and international discourse on culture related to the rural periphery, as well as creating opportunities for cultural practitioners and researchers to implement socially responsible and site-sensitive projects. From 2019 to 2021, he worked as Curator of Education and Community Engagement at the Contemporary Art Centre; in 2023 he assisted in the Lithuanian National Pavilion Children’s Forest Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In 2024, he curated the Architecture Fund’s Experimental Platform and in the same year became Head of Educational Programmes at Stasys Museum. Since 2025, at SODAS 2123, Vaitiekūnas has been curating a project of play-oriented architectural installations in public space.

JONAS ŽUKAUSKAS

Jonas Žukauskas is an architect, researcher, and curator. He graduated from the Architectural Association School of Architecture (AA) in London with an Architect’s Diploma. Since 2014, together with Jurga Daubaraitė, he has been studying the circumstances, histories, and materialities of colonisations and modernisations that have shaped the architectural environment, infrastructures, and extraction and circulation networks defining the geographies and cultures of the Baltic region. Daubaraitė and Žukauskas co-curated the Baltic Pavilion at the 15th Venice Architecture Biennale (2016) and co-edited the book The Baltic Atlas (Sternberg Press, 2016).

In 2019, together with Egija Inzule, they founded Neringa Forest Architecture (NMA)—a research and residency programme at Nida Art Colony. In 2023, NMA curated and designed the Children’s Forest Pavilion, Lithuania’s presentation at the 18th Venice Architecture Biennale, and in 2024 they presented the play-space exhibition Les pièces de la forêt (“Components of the Forest”) at arc en rêve centre d’architecture in France. That same year they were selected as finalists for the 2024 New European Bauhaus Prize in the category Re-connecting with Nature. The Children’s Forest Pavilion currently functions as an educational space at Stasys Museum. Since 2023, they have co-led the COOP study group at the Dutch Art Institute (DAI) and run the publishing initiative Kirvarpa Books.

Organizer: LNDM National Gallery of Art
Initiator and Coordinator: Goda Aksamitauskaitė
Graphic Designer: Ugnė Balčiūnaitė
Project funded by: Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Lithuania

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