The Lithuanian National Museum of Art (LNMA) invites - yearly - to hundreds of education activities designed for both, children and adults to learn through art and creation. The debut festival of art and education EDUFEST held on 19-20 September presented these opportunities more profoundly and in more detail. A festivity of two days cast museums as sources of light inviting to explore, discover and get inspired.
A team of education professionals has been assembled for the festival from the nine of the LNMA’s departments in four towns, joined also by the invited artists and experts of the field. Together, they have established a vibrant creative space where education specialists presented the character of their daily activities, while the visitors have the power of learning through art learned first-hand.
EDUFEST celebrates community and learning
The visitors, who came to ascertain that museum is truly not a boring place of frozen exhibits, but a stage of plenty inclusive and art-opening activities, were welcomed by Dr Arūnas Gelūnas, director general of the LNMA. He was joined in his greeting words by Matas Drukteinis, adviser to the prime minister on culture and UNESCO. Mr. Drukteinis spoke of the LNMA as an open museum, constantly learning and inviting to learn, witnessing memory as living organism. “The creation and care of history is a never-ending affair,” he said, expressing also his joy that the education festival has become a natural part of Čiurlionis’s jubilee events celebrating his 150th anniversary. His idea was picked up by the director general of the LNMA, who noted that “Čiurlionis, like all great artists, composers and painters, had his teachers. Therefore, today we celebrate education.”
The head of the festival team, Jolanta Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė, deputy director for exhibitions and education of the LNMA, welcomed the community of the museum and all the guests.
“This festival is a great occasion to get together and socialize, to celebrate our profession, and the happiness of working for the museum, to also share the ideas of creativity and the experiences of our work with the public, families, friends, and everyone around us,” she said. She also thanked the festival’s partners: Čiurlioniui 150, information partners LRT and JCDecaux, Vilnius City Public Health Bureau Vilnius sveikiau (their representative set up the festival with morning exercises) and EDU Vilnius with their platform Vilnius yra mokykla that provided for booking different backstage museum activities.
Augustina Ivanauskaitė, senior educator of the Vilnius Picture Gallery of the LNMA team, and tour guide Akvilė Murauskaitė noted the importance of the EDUFEST to the community of educators as an opportunity to share experience, raise questions of their profession and talk of what inspires to specialize, as there are no formal programmes for education specialists in Lithuania. This calling usually happens without prior contemplation, most things are learned from the audience, through intuition.
The first day of the event invited families, pupils and teachers could step into everyday activities of the museum and learn how exhibitions come to life and what stories unfold backstage, the place that normally do not receive attention from the visitors. When the gaiety off-stage tour subsided, a discussion of surprises behind discoveries and acquisitions of new art pieces, hosted by the National Gallery of Art the LNMA, started the discussion series of the event.
Creative environment enhanced discourse on themes of relevance to contemporary-museum
On the second day of the event, a “town” of museum education was set up in the courtyard of the Chodkevičiai Palace. The LNMA’s educators invited the visitors to try out creative assignments, discover the diversity of museums and to experience the thrill of learning through art. The creative setting was conducive for a more profound reflection as well, in a form of discussions on different roles of a museum and people who create it in the broader process of education.
“The topics for the EDUFEST deliberations, art therapy and education, the boundaries of the educator’s profession were prompted by the museum’s daily practice. These were the questions of consequence of the educators, generated by observing recent shifts in society. They reflect the evolution of museums and the powers of cultural education and inspire to keep changing in the future,” Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė said.
The discussions series opened with an encounter of different generations tackling the problem of Digital generation and museums: how to find a common language? The discourse featured Dr Arūnas Gelūnas, director general of the LNMA, Dr Kristupas Sabolius, Prof. of Philosophy Institute of VU and founder of Creativity School (Kūrybingumo mokykla), Justas Tertelis, theatre creative and educator, programme curator of the association Creative Links (Kūrybinės jungtys), Unė Kaunaitė, writer, education expert, head of Edu Vilnius, and Saulė Gudavičiūtė, representing school pupils. The meeting was moderated by Ignas Krupavičius, event and TV programme host.
What exactly educators do in museums? This question was tackled by the discussion Between one’s instinct and the institution: What is an educator? Egle Nedzinskaitė, curator of educational programmes at the National Gallery of Art of the LNMA, pointed out that an educator of a contemporary museum of art needs to wear many hats – from an authority or a trainer, to knowledge mediator and facilitator. According to her, the educators have a very important task to achieve over a short time span of an event – they stand in the shoes of a mediator between the artwork t and the viewer, and instead of “conveying dry knowledge, help them cast away their stereotypes of museums being boring”. Iveta Kemėšytė, VU coordinator for museum educational activities, and street artist Pijus Čeikauskas, known as Pigeon, also shared their insights. The discussion was moderated by Goda Aksamitauskaitė, event curator at the National Gallery of Art of the LNMA.
During the discussion Art therapy and education. What ingredients do we want to mix? Daiva Banikonienė, educational programmes curator at the Radvila Palace Museum of Art of the LNMA, noted that every talk about education brings to the fore the word “relationship”. She also introduced the project My Own Museum, run by the LNMA for several years already. It includes all departments of the LNMA in an outreach mission for diverse audiences of the museum, especially for the vulnerable groups. “Sometimes it only takes to find a way, which even with few resources, can make the museum more accessible, transforming just a visit into a joyful experience of positive emotions. These moments when people take their time, and when leaving feel like coming back, are also moments of true reward to the educators,” Banikonienė said. Textile artist and art therapist Mantas Televičius and education specialist, developer of intersectoral art projects, Ieva Petkutė also shared their experience. The discussion was moderated by Marcišauskytė-Jurašienė.
The discussion part was again followed by education workshops which transformed the courtyard of the Chodkevičiai Palace into a buzzing place of happy activities. The evolutions of workshops led by the LNMA’s educators were joined by invited artists. Mantas Televičius invited to experiential art therapy workshop Human, composer and performer Laura Kešytė-Mexeny led a musical workshop, while the artist Greta Alice Liekytė, together with the educators of the Radvila Palace Museum of Art created a travelling comics strip, while the artist Pijus Čeikauskas - Pigeon invited young audience to join a street workshop. The cheerful event was consummated by musical performances by Mexeny and group Dargana.
The journey of learning through art to continue year round
Cultural education is one of the most important directions pursued by the LNMA. The museum aspires to make art easier accessible to a diversity of social groups, from children and young adults, to families, adults and visitors with special needs.
The education at the museum is not exhausted by classes or tours. Creative evolutions-workshops, integrated lessons, experiential activities addressing different types of needs and experience of potential audience are also offered. This field is increasingly interdisciplinary, it includes elements of physical and emotional wellness, based on scientific evidence that art improves the feeling of wellbeing and strengthens social ties. This EDUFEST brought all these strands together, inviting to revisit the value of cultural education and the new future opportunities it is capable to offer. The participants in the festive event could experience only a part of this broad spectrum of educational activities, because they are spread at the LNMA over the course of entire year. For more information please visit https://www.lndm.lt/edukacija.
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