LITUANICA: To Dream and To Conquer

The travelling exhibition „LITHUANICA: To Dream and To Conquer“ commemorates the 90th anniversary of the flight across the Atlantic Ocean by Steponas Darius and Sasys Girenas. The exhibition tells the story about one of the most important events of the 20th Century Lithuania: the flight across the Atlantic in 1933, and the release of the film „The Flight Across the Atlantic“ in 1983, directed by Rimundas Vabalas.

Darius and Girenas were terminated to cross the Atlantic, flying from New York Floyd Bennett  Airoport to Kaunas. On July the 15th 1993, 4:24 PM they took off from New York. Unfortunately, the plain crashed (in current Polish territory) when there were only 650 km left to the destination. They flew 6 411 km uninterruptedly for 37 hours and 11 minutes. This was the second longest uninterrupted flight in the history at the time. Such dedication to making the name of the homeland famous has led to a great and undying attention in Lithuania to this legendary flight and pilots.

“Flight Across the Atlantic is the most popular Lithuanian feature film in the history of Lithuanian cinema: in the 1980s, it was seen by more than 647 000 viewers, i.e. about one in five Lithuanians at the time.

 

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Exhibition team:

Curator: Nideta Jarockienė

Exhibition Designer: Ieva Šimkonytė

Graphic Designer: Modesta Žemugalytė

IT Coordinator: Audrius Janulevičius

Production: MB “Montažo fėjos”

Let Us Mourn the Fall of Prussia

‘The exhibition is based on the Lithuanian Folklore Theatre’s play – the mourning rituals in memory of the Baltic Knights, Let’s Mourn the Fall of Prussia (written and directed by Povilas Mataitis, scenography and costume designer Dalia Mataitienė). The premiere of the play took place on 15th of July 1989, on the day of the 579th anniversary of the Žalgiris Battle. The Prussian costumes recreated by Dalia Mataitienė, have no analogues not only in Lithuania, but also in the whole world, testify to the uniqueness of the Prussians and their high spiritual culture.’

By curator V. Vareikis

Exhibition design is a contemporary interpretation of the original scenography. It references design structures that were used in the play, changing its materiality to contrast with the exhibition space and make the the costumes and their colourful patterns stand out.

 

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Exhibition team:

Curator: Vygantas Vareikis

Project Manager: Janina Aemonaitė

Exhibition Designer: Ieva Šimkonytė

Graphic Designer: Vilmantas Žumbys

Production: MB ‘Montažo fėjos’

German Street

VILNIUS MUSEUM 2022

The exhibition presents the history of German Street, where Vilnius Museum is located. Part of the exhibition is dedicated to childhood history: starting from toys that were found during archaeological excavations to more recent childhood memories of the street’s inhabitants.

Interactive area for kids and families encourages to learn about history through making and playing. Lithuanian childhood history has a long tradition of hand-made toys that were crafted by parents or children themselves. We invite visitors to construct and customise their own toys as well as learn the games that German Street inhabitants use to play in the 14th – 17th Centuries.

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Pictures by Ieva Šimkonytė

Exhibition curators: Martynas Jakulis, Viktorija Kurienė, Jurgita Verbickienė, Aelita Ambrulevičiūtė, Rasa Antanavičiūtė, Povilas Andrius Stepavičius

Healing Wounds of Soul

IDENTITY ON THE LINE 2022

The project explores European migration processes and their long-term consequences. Lithuanian local exhibition presents painful stories of Jewish women who left their families and joined partisan troops in the forests during WW2. Narratives are explored through survivors, their daughters, and granddaughters’ perspectives, emphasizing how traumatic experiences affect generations to come.

Sensitive content posed a challenge, especially presenting the travelling exhibition at schools for younger audiences. This was addressed by offering different levels of depth that let visitors decide whether they feel comfortable with listening to the most disquieting parts of the painful past.
Exhibition design aims to create a sense of intimacy and compassion towards the survivors while asking how we can create safe environments for women to share their stories and start the healing process.

 

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Pictures by Justinas Aukšelis (Vilnius University)

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Curators: Donata Armakauskaitė and Neringa Latvytė

Children’s City

VILNIUS MUSEUM 2021

Children’s city is an interactive urban planning game that presents the city planning process.

The game raises some questions: How do buildings appear in the city? Who builds them? Who decides how a building will look? Do city structures respond to the needs of the city’s inhabitants? And how can we adapt the city to various groups of people making it functional and inclusive for everyone?

The game aims to educate and include the young generation of museums visitors and create a new outlook on the city planning culture.

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Pictures by Vilnius Museum / Ieva Šimkonytė

Exhibition curators: Rasa Antanavičiūtė and Marija Drėmaitė

Illustrator: Vanda Padimanskaitė

Inside the Sarcophagus: Studying the Mummies of Ancient Egypt

NATIONAL MUSEUM OF LITHUANIA 2021 – 2022

The exhibition presents the entire Egyptology collection of Lithuania for the first time. Visitors are invited to explore the history of Egyptology science starting from XIX Century travellers, black market and Egyptomania to nowadays modern non-invasive technologies.

As part of the exhibition team, I collaborated with curators and scientists to create interactive points in each gallery. Visitors are encouraged to participate in learning process by touching fabric used for mummification, smelling myrrh, listening to Egyptian gods telling their stories, hearing extracts from Lithuanian travellers’ diaries, or virtually unwrapping a mummy to learn what can be unveiled using modern technologies.

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Pictures by Norbert Tukaj / Gvidas Bindokas

Curators: Simona Matuzevičiutė and Vita Blažiūnienė

Graphic Designer: Edward Cornish

Illustrator: Aušra Kiudulaitė

L’Observatoire Bizarre

ROYAL ACADEMY LATE 2017

An event in a cold winter night where everyone’s alter ego was allowed to party, we opened an experimental Dadaist research bureau L’Obsrvatoire Bizarre.

Every person entering the lab became a protagonist of a bizarre story where they were invited to take a surreal eye test, predict their fate based on chance games and explore ideas of the fourth dimension.

An interactive installation/performance aimed to confuse and immerse Royal Academy Late event’s visitors into Dadaist ideas and was created in collaboration with performers from Central Saint Martins and UCL scientists.

 

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Images by Max Miechowski

In collaboration with Elisa Frenay and Samuel Wangsaputra

Museum on a Bicycle

DAVID PARR HOUSE 2018

The Museum on a Bicycle is about bringing the stories of David Parr House to a wider public in Cambridge. It is a travelling museum designed with small, personal details in mind. Every element of the design tells a story of the house and aims to spark conversations and storytelling around it.

The bicycle communicates the various hidden elements of 186 Gwydir Street – a house like any other on the outside, but concealing an extraordinary interior world; holding stories from across decades, marks left by its inhabitants, hidden corners and secret compartments. The Museum on a Bicycle aims to engage public with these multilayered stories – and to encourage them to create their own.

In collaboration with design historian Laura Ridpath we have been commissioned to prototype the Museum on a Bicycle. By working closely with David Parr House we developed a multifunctional trolley that can be unfolded and used outdoor in family fun fairs, parks and streets but also can be brought indoors to present the museum to schools, care homes and community centers.

The design is inspired by Victorian unfolding features and secret compartments thus, the trolley is not only multifunctional but also preserves theatrical surprise element while unfolding recreating the experience of visiting the house that appears ordinary from the outside but hides an extraordinary interior once you step through the door.

 

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In collaboration with Laura Ridpath

 

 

 

Wanderlust

Wanderlust is an exhibition space and a playground designed for toddlers and families that includes the youngest museum goers to the context of museums and their culture. The Story Museum is an inspiring immersive interactive space located in the heart of Oxford dedicated to children’s literature. I had an opportunity to work with them and design a mock up of the toddlers space.

Wanderlust (which means strong desire for travelling and wondering) is an immersive multi-sensory environment designed to enhance toddlers learning processes. From the age zero to three children learn about the world surrounding them and develop their senses. Playing is crucial for toddler’s development process: it is not only telling them about physical aspects of the world such as textures, sounds, moving objects, colours and patterns but also teaches problem solving, social skills, creative thinking and self-control.

Design of the space states that there is no age to play and invites everyone to participate, be creative and playful. Thus, the scale and activities are designed to involve the whole family inviting everyone to play and create deep and meaningful relationships as well as positive early experiences in exhibition context growing a new generation of museums goers.

 

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Why Escape

BACHELOR’S DISSERTATION 2017

The thesis is an exploration of escapism in postmodern culture, design and architecture. The research is based on the primary question “Why escape?” looks deeper into different possibilities what escapism might be and why is it so present in Western culture and customs.

The dissertation explores philosophy of entertainment and escapism and how it merged into everyday lives, social order and city planning. For instance, one of the first examples of Epicurean philosophy are Roman circuses built to distract from everyday struggles.

The work also investigates non written social rules present in the spaces for escape such as bars, clubs and shopping malls. Why escape also examines psychological aspects of escapism, fight or flight theory and social norms created around it.

 

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THESES IN FORM EXHIBITION AT THE LONDON COLLEGE OF COMMUNICATION, UNIVERSITY OF THE ARTS LONDON 2017

Finally, psychological aspects, social rules and philosophical theories reflect in design and city planning of our everyday environments and as a last exercise I examine how entertainments and escapism places are built and designed for escape.

The theses was handwritten on 150 postcards from different places. The work has been selected to be developed into an installation for Theses in Form exhibition. Why Escape transformed into an immersive installation where visitors were invited to sit on a beach and listen to the stories from someone who escaped and maybe dream a little about all those places you could visit if you only escaped for a little while…

 

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Images by Kajsa Leon-Lilja

In collaboration with Arturas Bondarciukas