The Ministry of Culture and the Contemporary Art Centre invite you to become acquainted with the results of the first phase of a creative workshops for the Memorial of Lukiškės Square. Here, we present the initial sketches and concepts of five proposals presented by practitioners from a diverse range of creative disciplines.
The participants of the creative workshop, organised by the Ministry of Culture and the Contemporary Art Centre, are: a collaborative team comprised of architects Gintaras Čaikauskas, Kęstutis Akelaitis, Linas Naujokaitis, visual artist Rimantas Dichavičius and sculptor Arūnas Sakalauskas (known to Lithuanian public as the authors of the memorial that is proposed and supported by the Vytis Foundation); the architect, doctor of humanitarian sciences and theoretician of architecture Tomas Grunskis with team ‘aexn’; sculptor and designer Andrius Labašauskas; ethnographer Algimantas Lelešius; and photographer, film and installation artist Darius Žiūra.
The five proposals were shortlisted by an expert jury panel at the end of July from over thirty ideas presented to the Contemporary Art Centre in response to an open call announced on 6 June 2017. Since the beginning of July the Contemporary Art Centre has worked closely with the authors of all five proposals to develop their ideas and in doing so has consulted with historians, artists, urbanists, specialists in the protocol of planning events of state importance, experts in various technologies, and legal advisors among others. As part of the first workshop each individual or group was matched with experts relevant to their concept to further aide the development of the authors’ proposals.
The proposed memorials share a complexity of propositions and considerations: they all include a range of architectural elements, effects of light and in some cases also water, their authors take into consideration the changing of seasons, and the needs of the city’s inhabitants and visitors. But they are also diverse in nature and reveal the varying opinions of their authors in regards to whom should the memorial be dedicated and how best to express respect and protect the memory. Our intention is that the authors’ varied responses to the challenges of this project will generate interest and encourage wider discussion.
All five artists and artists’ groups will continue to develop their proposals, responding to recommendations by the jury panel, improving the nuances of historical narratives and technological aspects as well as adapting their projects to the specificities of the landscape, architecture and green elements of Lukiškės Square, which are gradually being revealed in the course of its reconstruction. The organisers invite an open dialogue with specialists from various fields, different groups of interests and the inhabitants of Vilnius to enable the authors of the proposals to consider different opinions and arguments (expressed publicly or directly to the organisers of the creative workshops), before presenting final versions of their proposals for selection.
The final proposals will be developed further in the following phase of the creative workshop and presented to the public in the newly opened Lukiškės Square and at the Contemporary Art Centre. In the final phase of the project, the public and panel of jurors will vote for one proposal to be implemented.
Please see the preliminary sketches of the proposals below. More extensive presentations can be found in this PDF file.