Teaching period: 2 days, 29th-30th April (2 – 6PM, EET)

Lecturers: Samantha Lippett (UK) & Kamilė Krasauskaitė (LT) in collaboration with assoc. prof. dr. Vytautas Michelkevičius (LT).

Students of Vilnius Academy of Arts and KUNO, lecturers, curators and artists are welcome to participate in this course.

Two-day online course will offer an introduction to socially engaged art practices and their role within the field of contemporary art. Led in partnership with the Education programme at the Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, the course will also reflect upon the development and future of these practices within the Baltic. Students will be provided a foundation in existing theories, methods and institutional and self-organised models, as well as bring into question the speculative futures of socially engaged art. The value, ethics and politics of the practice will also be brought to the fore, through examples from Samantha Lippett (UK) and Kamilė Krasauskaitė‘s (LT) work to date. Structure: Two days (4 hours each) comprising lectures and practical activities with material reading and watching.

 

LECTURERS’ BIOGRAPHY:

SAMANTHA LIPPETT is a curator and lecturer based between London and Vilnius. For the last five years she has curated a programme of residencies and community projects with emerging and international artists for South London Gallery on local housing estates and lectures in Visual Cultures at Middlesex University.

KAMILĖ KRASAUSKAITĖ is a curator of Education and Community Engagement at CAC (Vilnius) and the non-disciplinary arts space Alt Lab (SODAS2123, Vilnius). Kamilė is a cross-disciplinary artist and primarily works with the medium of sourdough.

Together they founded the cross-cultural research platform COMMON GROUND that brings together their network of colleagues and friends working in community practice. Currently the platform exists as a bi-monthly radio show hosted by Palanga Street Radio (LT).

ASSOC. PROF. DR. VYTAUTAS MICHELKEVIČIUS is a curator, researcher and writer. He has curated and published on photographicallity of art and society, socializing through art, interdisciplinarity between art and research, artistic research, experimental teaching, and participatory curatorial practices. While serving as artistic director of Nida Art Colony (2010-2019), he has initiated and co-curated a series of 10 Inter-format Symposiums which celebrated collaboration and engagement in temporary artistic communities.


PROGRAMME:

Day one:
– An introduction to socially engaged art practice and presentations by Samantha Lippett (UK) and Kamilė Krasauskaitė (LT);
– Case studies exercise in groups;
– Presentation;
– Set reading for day two.

Day two:
– Lecture: Value, ethics and the speculative futures of socially engaged art;
– Imagining futures exercise;
– Presentation;
– Concluding discussion.