The Aleknai\u010diai Culture and Education Space (Akee), in collaboration with the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists\u2019 Association (LTMKS), is organizing a day camp for children aged 8\u201312 from the Pakruojis district. The camp will take place from June 16 to 19, 2026, within the Akee spaces and their surroundings. The program is developed and implemented by LTMKS members\u2014artists Aist\u0117 Marija Stankevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117 and Algirdas Jakas\u2014and curated by Vilius Vaitiek\u016bnas.<\/p>\n
This year\u2019s camp theme, “Specialists,” invites children to explore the world through imagination, inventions, and professions that do not yet exist. Who could fix a lost dream? Who takes care of shadows? Who gathers scattered laughter or stops a day that is running too fast? During the camp, children will be encouraged to step away from the conventional understanding of everyday objects and professions to create their own systems governed by alternative rules. Using drawing, construction, storytelling, and spatial creation, they will invent unusual tools, imagine the specialists who use them, and build the worlds in which they operate.<\/p>\n
In daily life, we are surrounded by objects whose purposes usually seem self-evident. In creative practice, however, objects can transform into something else entirely\u2014sometimes born from a drawing or an idea, and sometimes emerging by combining, altering, and reinterpreting existing items. An old wire can become a dream catcher, a scrap of fabric can store invisible sounds, and a few randomly found objects can turn into a completely brand-new tool. Exploring materials and their possibilities, the children will create dream mechanics, silence catchers, shadow caretakers, and other fantastic characters. They will merge their individual ideas into a shared world of specialists, revealing collectively created stories, rules, and interconnections.<\/p>\n
Aist\u0117 Marija Stankevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117 is a visual artist and writer. Her practice focuses on cities after hours, the intersections of personal experiences and “universal” world rules, and traces of defiance. Her drawings, texts, and sculptures borrow forms from everyday domestic life, which, having lost control, dissolve the boundaries between the mundane and the fantastical.<\/p>\n
Aist\u0117 Marija holds a BA in Photography and Media Arts and an MA in Sculpture from the Vilnius Academy of Arts, and is an alumna of Rupert alternative education programme. She writes for contemporary art dailies, blends artistic and curatorial practices, and works in cultural communication. This year, she participated in the group exhibitions Hyperbleed at the project space Solaris in Berlin and Risen Dust at the Atletika gallery in Vilnius, as well as the duo exhibition Trapped Trap at the Kintai Arts gallery alongside artist Lukas Danys. The artist has also participated in group exhibitions in Lithuania, Germany, France, Australia, the USA, and beyond. She is currently a participant in the Emerging Curators Platform.<\/p>\n
Algirdas Jakas is an artist living and working in Vilnius. He studied Graphic Art at the Vilnius Academy of Arts and Sculpture at the University of Fine Arts Hamburg (HFBK). In recent years, alongside artist Egl\u0117 Ruibyt\u0117, he presented the projects Twilight Glows at the Lokomotif project space in Lentvaris and Hermit Crab at the Atletika gallery. In 2025, he held the solo exhibition Circuit Board at the SODAS 2123 cultural centre project space. The artist has also participated in group exhibitions in Lithuania, Germany, Austria, Estonia, and the Czech Republic.<\/p>\n
Algirdas\u2019s artistic practice focuses on the synthesis of anxiety and different forms of self-diagnosis. Utilizing materials and techniques associated with hobbies or therapeutic activities (such as drawing and DIY aesthetics), he explores individual self-help practices, creating “instruments of anxiety.” The artist is also interested in the datafication and transparency of the body, as well as technologies of hope. This frequently connects to the specific history and context of a project’s location, becoming an integral layer of the artwork.<\/p>\n
Vilius Vaitiek\u016bnas is an educator and creator of diverse cultural activities and formats. In 2018, he earned a BA in Fine Arts from the Minerva Academy in the Netherlands and completed a pre-master\u2019s program in Art and Cognitive Sciences at the University of Groningen. Vaitiek\u016bnas is an alumnus of the Rupert Alternative Education Program (2021) and the Inland Academy (2022). He is currently pursuing an MA in Visual Culture and Contemporary Art at Aalto University in Helsinki.<\/p>\n
In 2019, he co-founded the Akee culture and education space in the village of Aleknai\u010diai, Pakruojis district. He has worked as a curator of education and community engagement at the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius, assisted with the Children’s Forest Pavilion project at the Lithuanian Pavilion during the 2023 Venice Architecture Biennale, and coordinated the project\u2019s presentation at the Stasys Museum in Panev\u0117\u017eys in 2024. Since 2024, Vaitiek\u016bnas has served as the Head of Educational Programs at the Stasys Museum; that same year, he co-curated the Architecture Fund\u2019s Experiment Platform project alongside Martynas Germanavi\u010dius.<\/p>\n
The day camps will take place from June 16 to 19, running daily from 9:30 AM to 3:30 PM.
\nThe program is designed for children aged 8\u201312, and participation is free of charge.<\/p>\n
The promotional artwork used for the event was created by Aist\u0117 Marija Stankevi\u010di\u016bt\u0117 and Algirdas Jakas.
\nEducational activities assistant of the camp \u2013 Simona \u010cemo\u0161kait\u0117.
\nThe project is organized by the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists\u2019 Association (LTMKS) in partnership with the Aleknai\u010diai Culture and Education Space (Akee).
\nPartner \u2013 Pakruojis District Lygumai Main School.
\nThe activities of LTMKS are funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture.<\/p>\n
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