Art residence in Vegerei, Lithuania

Vegeriai is a a small village near the town of Akmenė in northern Lithuania. Here, archaeologists are exploring a medieval town that was completely destroyed during World War II, and they are also finding artifacts from the early Middle Ages, when these lands were inhabited by the Semigals (or Zemgals) tribes. In May 2022, in Vegeriai landart residency took place.

 

In Lithuania, the Akmenė History Museum became a project partner. Museum’s activists are as enthusiastic as we, Ukrainians, are. They collect money, organize excavations, involve young people. In 2021, the director of the museum, Arunas Ostrauskis, came to the archaeological excavations in Tyagin. He saw the art projects inspired by archeology and said: "I want to bring this idea to Akmenė!" After that that we started thinking about how to make this dream come true.

 

Becaues of the full-scale invasion of russia to Ukraine and partial occupation of the Kherson region, the excavation and art-residence in Tyagin had to be canceled in 2022. However, we decided to meet at the excavations in Lithuania and prove that nobody can take away our common European history and culture.

 

In Vegeriai, Ukrainian artists saw many parallels between local history and current situation in Ukraine – destroyed cities, lost families and homes. However, in their artworks they showed not only the tragedy that war brings to Ukraine, but the inevitability of revival and return to one's land also.

 

Here, in Vegeriai, archaeologists, historians and artists worked together, and archeology became a co-creator of artworks as in Ukraine was. The artists called their work "the archeology of meanings"  because archaeologists were looking for artifacts, and artists were looking for new ideas and new meanings.