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ArtGuide 2015. Close Stranger: Gdańsk — Kaliningrad — Klaipėda
ElenaTsvetaeva, AgnieszkaWołodźko, IgnasKazakevičius (Eds.) (2015) Kaliningrad: Baltic Branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts. ISBN 978-5-94620-100-1. – 176 p.
In 2013, in the frame of the “Close Stranger”, contemporary artists and arts professionals from Lithuania, Poland and Russia went on an art expedition along the South-Eastern coast of the Baltic Sea. It included visits to historical and cultural sites important for the regional identity. As a result of the trip, artists, curators, writers, journalists, social researchers and art critics prepared a unique art-guide “Close Stranger: Gdańsk — Kaliningrad — Klaipėda”, which presents different views on what unites the three… Continue reading
AN EXPEDITION WITH GEOGRAPHICAL NOTES
The names of the streets and pubs, houses and temples that I have seen are slowly receding from my memory, giving their place to longing and nostalgia. A coherent text on my journey from Klaipeda to Kaliningrad and Gdansk is a story that I have populated, while my overheard stories and the buddies’ aphorisms are sticking all over it, so that the story slowly begins to crack and come apart. So I have to be in a hurry. Because he knows his time is short. This story, it cannot be denied, is based on impromptu induced by hasty observation at… Continue reading
CLOSE STRANGER: KLAIPĖDA. BLANK SPACES
Rimantas Eivenis
Hi. We are entering the city. What is its taste and smell, how do people dress here, what do they do in the evenings.Klaipėda. Here, we have both the lagoon and the sea, and the wind stretches a blanket of sand and the smell of wave crests over the city, mixed with the sounds of cranes and seagulls’ lamentations.
· Only to local people the city seems stable. Every day, they see the same houses in the same streets, meet the same people, cross the same squares, and have their lunch in the same cafés.
· For visitors,… Continue reading
Faraway, So Close: Strangers, Soundscapes and Urban Rituals
On 8-12 of June Faraway, So Close: Strangers, Soundscapes and Urban Rituals – the series of closing events of the project Close stranger will take place in Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre.
The aim of the interdisciplinary event is to gather scholars, art critics and artists from Lithuania, Poland and Russia to discuss issues of urban rituals and their relations to arts. The event seeks in academic and artistic manner to elaborate ideas of transcendence of the boundaries of social and cultural divisions such as locals/strangers, artists/audiences, arts/art criticism, national/postmodern, us/them. Those divisions, usually functioning as means… Continue reading
FINAL PRESENTATION OF THE PROJECT CLOSE STRANGER
European Solidarity Centre, room nr 5, III floor
21 May 2015, 5 pm – 8 pm
Project manager: Julia Bardun
Artistic director of the project at Laznia CCA: Agnieszka Wołodźko
Director of the project at KCCA, Klaipeda: Ignas Kazakevicius
PROGRAM
5 pm – 5:15 pm – welcome word
5:15 pm – 5:35 pm – presentation of the documentary “Close Stranger”, dir. Marek Zygmunt
5:35 pm – 6:00 pm – Łukasz Szałankiewicz, presentation of the album “Sound Around”
6 pm – 7:45 pm – panel discussion “Art in times of conflict” (moderation: Barbara Piórkowska, participants: Ona Bajoriniene (Klaipeda Culture… Continue reading
«Close Stranger»: the final presentation of results
On 8 April 2015 at 19.00, a final presentation of the results of the project «Close Stranger» will take place in Kaliningrad at the Baltic Branch of the National Centre for Contemporary Arts (the attic of the «Kronprinz» barracks). The program includes an exhibition, a concert, a presentation of the publications released in the framework of the project as well as informal discussions with the project participants and the BB NCCA’s partner institutions from Belarus, Germany, Poland, Lithuania, Moldova, The Netherlands, Russia and Ukraine.
The program of the presentation includes an exhibition of some of the… Continue reading
The international Conference “Art’s impact on the image of the city”
konferencja_zaproszenie_A5_podgladowy
The conference’s organization: Dr. Agnieszka Wołodźko
Can art contribute to making EVERYONE feel good in the city? And in this light, what is the potential that is brought about by the projects realized in the public space? Are they dialogue-related, are they exclusive or are they just an ornament of the city life? In other words: do they make things more esthetic or are they carriers of change? To what extent can we, as creators and organizers of such activities, contribute to the meeting of the postulate of Irish artist and curator Paul O’Neill for the “creation… Continue reading
International artpark open in the Old Town of Klaipėda
The centre of Klaipėda has been hosting an exhibition of public art objects created by artists from Lithuania, Poland and Kaliningrad region (Russia) – the participants in the international cultural exchange project “Close Stranger”. Coordinated by Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre (KCCC), the creative experiments by Lithuanian artists and guests have enriched the ordinary environment of the Old Town by new decorative accents and means of entertainment.
Donatas Bielkauskas, well-known Lithuanian sound artist, has decided to examine the contemporary communication habits. Specially for this project, he has constructed dangles – the traditional Lithuanian signal percussion instruments. During the excursion over… Continue reading
CD “Sound Around”
The project “Sound Around” comprised of three art residencies in Kaliningrad (1–6 of June, 2013), in Gdansk (21–29 of June, 2013) and in Klaipėda (31 of August – 8 of September, 2013) as well as accompanying festivals.
The purpose of the project – multilateral exchange of experience, practice and technologies among sound artists from Poland, Lithuania and Russia. Artists in residence were focused on explorations of acoustic landscape of the three cities, development of individual and collective creative methods. The artists collaborated in compiling archives of records, creating sound installations, concert… Continue reading
Realization of an art work in the public space
Art in public space in Gdansk
Close Stranger/Art in public space 2013
Artists:
Julijonas Urbonas, Walking on the Wall: an introduction to the field of design choreography
lecture/performance /carousel
07.09.2013, 19:00
Where: Klubogaleria BUNKIER’s Wall, ul. Olejarna 3
Let’s do it together (Monika Waraxa, Kuba Budzyński, Bartek Bartosiński)
27-29 September 2013
Where: Billboards in the city space of Gdańsk
Screenings:
Theatre in the Window, ul. Długa
Wybrzeże-Malarnia Theatre, ul. Teatralna (near Targ Węglowy) – screening between 21:00-24:00
Gentle women, Memories of happiness
28 September – 29 December 2013
Where: ul. Korzenna not far from the Lovers’ Bridge (opposite the Baltic Sea Cultural Centre, ul. Korzenna… Continue reading
Klaipėda Old town to host the artworks of an international art project
One of the final chords that ″Close Stranger″, the international cultural exchange project, will play in Klaipėda, is an exposition of public art objects created by artists from Lithuania, Poland and Kaliningrad region (Russia) in the spaces of the Lithuanian port city. An excursion to introduce those artworks will start from the Exhibition hall of Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre (KCCC) at Didžioji Vandens street, 2, after the opening of the ″9000 km″ exhibition that is to take place at 6 p.m. on Friday, October 10th. The excursion invites and expects everyone who is interested.
In their work, six… Continue reading
Curator from Kaliningrad to present his exhibition ″9000 km″ in Klaipėda
At 6 p.m. on Friday, October 10th, the Exhibition hall of Klaipėda Culture Communication Centre (KCCC) at Didžioji Vandens street, 2, is to open exhibition ″9000 km″ as part of the project ″Close Stranger″. The exhibition reviews a social and cultural panorama of Russia as the result of work that Yevgeny Umansky, Kaliningrad-based curator, has carried out over many years.
The project title refers to the distance between the most remote West and East points of Russia – the cities of Kaliningrad and Vladivostok, and also describes the scale of the project.
The idea behind the project is to reveal… Continue reading
LEAVE THE PEDESTAL – REPLACE THE MONUMENT
Drawings (ink on paper): Rolandas Marčius
Text: Skaistė Kazarauskaitė-Marčienė
LEAVE THE PEDESTAL – REPLACE THE MONUMENT
Monuments route: Gdańsk – Kaliningrad – Klaipėda
On a Habit to Use the Plinth
In 2012, during the final review of students’ works at the National Gallery of Art, Saulius Leonavičius, MA graduate from Vilnius Academy of Fine Arts, took an artwork from its pedestal (platform), put it on the ground, and after half a minute, returned it back. The art object was Deimantas Narkevičius’ ″Too Long on the Plinth″ (1994). ″About a Habit to Use Plinths″ Saulius Leonavičius. Internet link… Continue reading