Since 2013, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (NAC) and the residency programme AIR – Artist in Residence Niederösterreich in Krems have run an annual exchange programme, offering artists based in Lithuania the opportunity to undertake a residency in Lower Austria, while artists from Austria are invited to take part in a residency in Neringa. AIR – Artist in Residence Niederösterreich is a multidisciplinary residency programme based in Krems on the Danube, open to practitioners in the visual arts, as well as curators, architects, musicians, and writers.
Following the open call for residencies in Krems in 2026, artists Paulina Domašauskaitė and Ieva Rižė have been selected and will travel to Austria in August and November. In parallel, Austrian artist Markus Hiesleitner will undertake a residency in Nida in September and October 2026.
‘I’m pleased that we are able to continue this long-term, meaningful partnership, which creates valuable conditions for artists from both countries to live and work abroad, exchange knowledge and experience, and further develop their practice. This kind of sustained support for artists is becoming increasingly rare against the backdrop of growing geopolitical tensions, and is therefore all the more important. I hope the selected artists will make full and meaningful use of the opportunities offered to them,’ says Neringa Bumblienė, director of NAC.
Paulina Domašauskaitė (b. 2000, Kaunas) is an emerging visual artist who completed an MA in Painting at Vilnius Academy of the Arts in 2025. Her work explores the intersections of archetypal cultural memory and individual imagination, the fictionality of images, the fragility of memory, and the transformations of imagination, combining abstract and drawing-based approaches to painting. She has held solo exhibitions at Galerija Vartai, Meno niša, and The Rooster Gallery in Vilnius, and regularly participates in group exhibitions in Lithuania. Alongside her artistic practice, she also works curatorially.
Ieva Rižė (b., Kaunas) is an interdisciplinary artist and a PhD candidate at Vilnius Academy of Arts, where she previously studied Monumental Painting and Contemporary Sculpture. Rižė is an alumna of Rupert’s 2024 Alternative Education Programme and was a member of the physical theatre troupe Okarukas from 2016 to 2018. Beginning in painting, her practice has expanded to include spatial painting, sculptural installation, video, and performance. Her work explores the human psyche, temporality, vulnerability, and the dynamics of power structures. She works with poetry, symbols, performativity, and everyday objects. More recently, her focus has shifted towards performance as a tool for embodying states of multifunctionality and exhaustion, investigating the dependencies and tensions that permeate collectively lived histories.
Markus Hiesleitner (b. 1981, Amstetten) lives and works in Vienna and Lower Austria. His sculptural practice explores the relationship between humans and nature, with a particular focus on agricultural processes, ecological cycles, and the materials people use to protect themselves from natural forces. Through conceptual, eco-political sculptures, installations, and videos, Hiesleitner examines the political, social, and economic mechanisms shaping contemporary everyday life. After completing agricultural training at the Francisco Josephinum in Wieselburg, he studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna from 2003 to 2008. Since 2005, he has co-organised the artist-run space Kulturdrogerie in Vienna with Franz Brunner, and since 2019, flora pondtemporary in St. Florian/Linz. In 2023, he received the Lower Austria State Recognition Award for Fine Arts.
