“Artistic autonomy is essential because art is a critical free voice”: the new season of the LIAA podcast

2026-07-07

The Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association (LIAA) presents the 2026 season of its podcast, dedicated to the theme of artists’ autonomy. This year’s conversations invite artists, researchers and cultural practitioners to discuss creative freedom, art’s relationship with institutions, public space and politics, and the ways in which society responds to artistic practices.

In the first episode of the season, cultural critic Monika Gimbutaitė speaks with artists Eglė Grėbliauskaitė and Agnė Gintalaitė. Their conversation centres on the interactive everyday-life performance Nepamirškime nebeprisiminti (Let’s Not Forget Not to Remember), which was launched in P. Cvirka Square in Vilnius in November 2021, and on the public, institutional and legal situation that unfolded around it.

Eglė Grėbliauskaitė and Agnė Gintalaitė are both artists, members of LIAA, and active in academic research. Since 2024, Agnė Gintalaitė has been working at the Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore, where she researches Lithuanian lifestyle mobility in the 21st century. Her interdisciplinary artistic practice is shaped by a reflective, research-based approach and by a hybrid interplay between scientific and artistic imagination. In her work and writing, Gintalaitė explores the intersections of historical truth, postcolonial materialities, everyday practices, imagination and contemporary culture.

Eglė Grėbliauskaitė is an associate professor at the Institute of International Relations and Political Science, Vilnius University (VU TSPMI), and also teaches at the Vilnius Academy of Arts (VDA) and Vilnius Gediminas Technical University (VILNIUS TECH). In 2024, she carried out the postdoctoral research project The Institutional Supervision of Artistic Autonomy: Art and Lithuanian Cultural Policy, which examined artistic expression and its political instrumentalisation. The artistic action in P. Cvirka Square also became part of this research. Grėbliauskaitė’s projects are marked by a sustained interest in cultural and social change, the mechanisms through which institutions operate, and the position of art in contemporary society.

On 11 November 2021, residents and visitors of Vilnius were invited to become part of an interactive artwork – the everyday-life performance Nepamirškime nebeprisiminti – in P. Cvirka Square. The work was intended to remain in public space until 13 December, but its course was interrupted by a conflict with Vilnius City Municipality. The installation was dismantled, and the artists were fined. Later, the court annulled the decision issued against Eglė Grėbliauskaitė in the administrative offence case as unlawful and unfounded, and terminated the administrative proceedings after finding no elements of an administrative offence in the artist’s actions.

“We can speak about autonomy only when the subject is granted the right to choose,” says Eglė Grėbliauskaitė in the conversation. According to her, conflict in the cultural field does not necessarily have to be understood as destructive. It can also become an opportunity to talk, to discuss different positions, and to reveal the principles on which relationships between institutions and artists are based. “Artistic autonomy is absolutely essential because art is a critical free voice that enables society to think,” the artist says.

The 2026 season of the LIAA podcast approaches artists’ autonomy as a practical principle that is tested daily in the cultural field. The season’s conversations ask how art can remain a critical voice when faced with political pressure, administrative power, the tensions of public opinion and institutional expectations. The second episode of the season will be released in autumn and will feature a conversation with artist Dainius Liškevičius about his 2000 performance Kliaksas / Restartas.

The episode is available to listen to here.

The conversation was recorded at the Garso generatoriai studio. LIAA activities are financed by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.