The 2025 LIAA prize winners are Saskia Fischer, Gabija Pernavaitė, and Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas.

2025-12-09

As every year, in 2025, LIAA organized a competition for the production of new works for its members. The association initiated this competition in 2020 and continues it as a regular annual tradition, recognizing the need for awards for the work of authors who are actively developing their practice.

The LIAA prize of one thousand euros to the artist contributes to the development of members’ creative practices, helps to implement projects under development, organize exhibitions, contributes to the creation of new works, participation in residencies, research, and the promotion of new initiatives, as well as providing additional dissemination opportunities through LIAA channels.

In 2025, the prizes were given to three artists: Saskia Fischer, Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas, and Gabija Pernavaitė.

This year, Saskia Fischer created a series of sculptures from hand-blown antique glass. This work was presented at the international contemporary art space Villa Merkel (Esslingen, Germany) as part of the installation Fictional Politics.

Saskia Fischer is an interdisciplinary artist who works with images, objects, texts, and the environment. Her practice is characterized by artistic research related to queer-feminist discourses, architectural theory, and the questioning of binary concepts of nature. Fischer studied fine art at Goldsmiths, University of London (2018), photography at Folkwang University of the Arts in Essen (2015), and attended courses in glass art, sculpture, and installation at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2014).

Saskia Fischer, Fictional Politics production, personal archive.

Gabija Pernavaitė created an installation entitled “Finally My Music Will Dust Reading Into Me as Well” and presented it in exhibition format at the SODAS 2123 project space in August and September. Working with separate fragments of a new play, she developed a performative exhibition format.

Gabija Pernavaitė is a contemporary art practitioner who explores themes of memory, identity, and social connections. Her work combines different media – objects, performance elements, texts, and photography. She earned her bachelor’s (2020) and master’s (2022) degrees at the Vilnius Academy of Arts, Department of Photography, Animation, and Media Art.

Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas was awarded the LIAA prize for participation in a two-month creative residency at Atelierhaus Salzamt in Linz (Austria). During his residency, Aukščiūnas worked with the Public Transport Project collective and prepared for an upcoming exhibition in Warsaw. In November, he and the collective presented an exhibition entitled Warsaw 2025 at the Gunia Nowik Gallery.

Deividas Vytautas Aukščiūnas is a visual artist and director who works with video, performance, installation, and print. Since 2022, when he graduated from the Royal College of Art in London, he has been living between Berlin and Vilnius. Aukščiūnas is a member of the Swiss-Lithuanian project collective Public Transport Project. He held a solo exhibition, Collective Healing Youth Club (ACT I), at the Meno Parkas gallery in Kaunas in 2023, and participated in group exhibitions, Surface Tension at Des Baines in London in 2024, and “Soft When Warm” at the Guts Gallery in London in 2023. In 2023, Aukščiūnas was nominated for the CIRCA award, and in 2021, he won the JCDecaux award. He has held solo exhibitions in Vilnius at the Meno Niša gallery (2024) and Medūza (2025).

Public Transport Project, Shaghai Taxi, film still.

Previous recipients of the award include LIAA members Žygimantas Kudirka, Inga Galinytė, Ignas Pavliukevičius, Barbora Matonytė, Tomas Daukša, Liudas Parulskis, Lina Kruopytė, Jurgita Juodytė, and others have already received prizes in previous years. The winners of the LIAA award competition are selected by the association’s board.

Cover photo: Gabija Pernavaitė, image from the exhibition “Finally My Music Will Dust Reading Into Me as Well.” Photo by Ugnė Steponavičiūtė.

The activities of the LIAA are financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.