NAC Residencies during the months of quarantine and June 2020

: Published on Wednesday, 03 June 2020 17:31

Photo by Milda Zabarauskaitė (2019).

The artist-in-residency programme at NAC has been ongoing throughout the quarantine. With the situation developing and changing swiftly in March, the main focus for international artists who were supposed to stay in Nida for longer was making the decision whether to stay or to leave. Nida in these turbulent times has most probably been one of the safest places in the region. The population density is low in general, and during the off-season most public locations are closed anyways. Thus, on site, in Nida, the public day-to-day life was barely affected by the quarantine regime. But general anxiety and uncertainty remains, as well as the impossibility to plan, the economic distress, and the sudden necessity in dealing with a somewhat forgotten mindset in this part of the EU: it’s not for the person themselves to decide where one’s home, temporary or permanent, can be.

During April, NAC residencies became home to some artists who had no “home” to return to. While there was this moment of the “last flight” and the “last ferry” in mid-March, Klaipeda, the port town close to Nida stayed connected to Kiel with the ferry throughout the past months. Thus, at least the possibility to leave was granted for some. International artists who had intended to come to Nida in April and May but were not able to enter the country then can come to stay at a later point in future.

In April, residencies also started to fill with practitioners based in Lithuania, becoming a substitute for cancelled international travels, cancelled (or postponed) international residencies, or for those just looking for escape from the cities’ quarantine regimes. Throughout these months we have managed to adopt and shift the residency programme not to return to “how it used to be”, but as it was initially planned for 2020: to open it up to an even broader scope of practices and practitioners from the Baltic region, working in research, production, and education within the fields of visual arts, architecture, design, and culture as well as the humanities and social sciences.

In May and June, the residencies are occupied by artists, architects, and filmmakers who in parallel to working on their own practices have actively and restlessly been participating in the ongoing process of restructuring the public outside spaces at NAC.

April and May residents: Kristin Wenzel, Justė Jonutytė and Augustas Serapinas, Lina Lapelyte and Mantas Petraitis, Milda Zabarauskaite and Robertas Narkus, Jurga Daubaraitė and Jonas Žukauskas, Kamilė Levulė and Rudolfas Levulis.

JUNE 2020

In June residencies will be occupied by: Ieva Gražytė and Denisas Kolomyckis, Nerijus Rimkus, Jurga Daubaraitė and Jonas Žukauskas, Milda Zabarauskaite and Robertas Narkus, Kamilė Levulė and Rudolfas Levulis.

Jurga Daubaraitė and Jonas Žukauskas are a duo of spatial practitioners currently based in Vilnius. Through architectural, curatorial, and research projects they aim to create new relations between societies and their environments (past and future) by seeking to rearticulate architecture in a wider ecology of practices.
They curated the exhibition The Baltic Material Assemblies at AA Gallery and RIBA in London (2018), and were co-curators of The Baltic Pavilion at the 15th International Architecture Exhibition at Venice Biennale (2016), and co-editors of The Baltic Atlas published by Sternberg (2016). Currently Daubaraitė and Žukauskas are working on Creative Playground and Garden in Vilnius and developing Neringa Forest Architecture Residency programme with focus on the Material Cycle of Timber at NAC.

Ieva Gražytė and Denisas Kolomyckis are currently based in Vilnius. Gražytė’s artistic practice ranges from poetry to computer graphics, coding and augmented reality. She is interested in interrelations between humans and technology as well as possible future scenarios and algorithmic culture. Since 2015 she actively participates in LGBTQ+ community activities in Lithuania. Her poetry and reviews are continuously published in various periodicals in Lithuania.
Denisas Kolomyckis is an interdisciplinary artist, performer, and activist. In his practice he works with questions concerning social-political context and LGBTQ+ rights. He recently started tackling movement disorders that can affect and change a person’s ability to control the physical actions of the body. Kolomyckis is a former artistic director and board member of Raizvanguarda - Associação Cultural in Portugal. In 2018 he initiated the establishing of the Lithuanian Actors Guild, and in 2016 he played a part in the movie You Can’t Escape Lithuania (Nuo Lietuvos nepabėgsi).
During their stay in Nida they will work on the performance Lucid Dream that consists of 9 different stories which are separated by a dream.

Kamilė Levulė and Rudolfas Levulis are based in Vilnius. Kamilė Levulė is a graduate of Culture Management and Cultural Policy, at the UNESCO department of Vilnius Academy of Arts. With a background in journalism, Levulė works both as author and producer at the production company www.pvz.lt.
Rudolfas Levulis’s projects are realised using various forms of media, from virtual platforms to physical public spaces. While exploring social borders and marginal groups, Levulis’s works are strongly related to experimental anthropology and research. His recent films include Visaginas (2017), Kaunas (2019), and Iceland Objects (2012).
While focusing on science and art synthesis, they are currently working on the development of the creative documentary film Consumer Landscape, which explores interactions of scientific research, pollution, and consumerism culture.

Nerijus Rimkus is an Amsterdam based editor and designer. He is interested in exploring form as a way of thinking and collaboration as a tool for publishing, whereby the traditional roles of author, editor, printer, or designer are intertwined, and language use and distribution methods are reflected. Currently Rimkus is working on a new publication Eternal Laughter and Other Poems, which will be published in the fall of 2020.

Robertas Narkus, based in Vilnius, describes his practice as the “management of circumstances in the economy of coincidence”. He brings together the ordinary and the absurd to explore notions of sovereignty, economy, desire technology, and obsolescence. Narkus uses performances, videos, installations, media art objects, and events as a medium.
Recently he exhibited at David Dale gallery in Glasgow (2019), CAC Vilnius (2017), and KIM? in Riga (2017). Narkus initiated and runs the artist day-care centre Autarkia in Vilnius, is founder of Vilnius Institute for Pataphysics, and the experimental engineering camp eeKūlgrinda.

Milda Zabarauskaitė lives and works in Vilnius. She graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts Photography and Media Art Department. Zabarauskaitė stopped working as a practicing artist in 2012, but prior to that she exhibited in group exhibitions at CAC Vilnius, Talinn Kunsthalle, and gallery Vartai (among others). Zabarauskaitė is co-founder of the artist day-care centre Autarkia and director of the artist run restaurant Delta Mityba in Vilnius.
She is currently working on research into the notion of the revenge of nature as seen from the perspective of exploitation of ecology for artistic projects and career building. With Autarkia she collaborates to the NAC night event programme to take place throughout the summer at local Nida bars and clubs.

NAC Residencies are co-funded by Lithuanian Council for Culture.