Fluxus Labs!
Community Program Fluxus Labs!
Community laboratories were established in Kaunas with the aim to unite local residents, artists, creators, activists, entrepreneurs, educators and everyone else willing to contribute to the creation and activation of their surroundings through artistic and creative activities. Since 2018, community laboratories have been developed in all 11 Kaunas city neighborhoods. This way Kaunas – European Capital of Culture 2022, becomes a celebration created by all Kaunas residents and communities. The events throughout the year reveal the dynamics in Kaunas communities, who enliven river banks, their yards and living environment, develop initiatives that reflect local identity, seek to create a safe and creative environment for their neighbors and much more. We believe that small creative initiatives create strong long-term changes vital to growing society which values creativity and connection.
Program vision:
Kaunas communities are open, involve residents into activities and acknowledge cultural diversity in the territories of Kaunas city and district and beyond (involvement); makes connections and cooperates by sharing the culture (connections), which they seek to express in creative, innovative, artistic ways and develop related activities (entrepreneurship).
Program aim:
To enable different communities to nurture their identity and become welcoming hosts of their place, sharing culture with Kaunas residents, Lithuanians and Europeans.
Tasks:
- Developing participatory culture
- Raising awareness (communicating the value of community arts to local leaders and businesses) and development of community arts (alongside the artists working with local communities)
- Encouraging local community-initiated changes in their living environment (help local communities to deal creatively with local challenges)
- Expansion of the artistic and cultural worldview
- Development of co-creating principles and promotion of practices
- Connecting with local communities as well as creating networks for local people and organizations
Ongoing projects:
Fluxus Laboratories
The aim is to bring formal and informal communities of Kaunas city together, also organizations of various sectors, individuals and to encourage them to get involved in cultural and artistic community activities in a specific neighborhood.
Fluxus Labas! Courtyard
The aim is to encourage yards’ communities to change their living environment, to take responsibility for it together with neighbors, to solve challenges creatively.
Fluxus Labas! Community initiatives
The aim is to support local initiatives of local and interest communities, to strengthen them with artistic contribution and publicity.
Trainings organized by the Faculty of Communities of the Cultural Tempo Academy
Competence development training for community facilitators
The aim of the training is to prepare community facilitators who would work with communities of specific places and would develop communal creative projects with them.
Training for creating and developing creative and cultural community businesses
The aim of the training is to help communities to refine their business idea and encourage its implementation.
Kiemų šventė
Tai tradicija tapęs renginys, kuriuo siekiama puoselėti Kauno miesto ir rajono gyventojų bendruomeniškumą, draugystę, paminėti artėjančią Tarptautinę kaimynų dieną.
Fluxus festivalis
Fluxus tai niekada nesibaigiantis judėjimas ir noras kilti, kopti, keistis: Iš laikinumo – į šiuolaikiškumą. Iš centro – į necentrą. Iš kasdienybės – į netikėtumus.
Competence development training for community facilitators
The aim of the training is to prepare community facilitators who would work with communities of specific places and would develop communal creative projects with them.
Training for creating and developing creative and cultural community businesses
The aim of the training is to help communities to refine their business idea and encourage its implementation.
Courtyard festival
This event has become a tradition, which aims to foster the communality and friendship of Kaunas city and district residents, to commemorate the upcoming International Neighbors’ Day.
Fluxus festival
Fluxus is a never-ending movement and desire to arise, climb, change: From temporary to contemporary. From the center to the periphery. From everyday life to unexpected.
Why Fluxus?
Kaunas is the birthplace of Jurgis Mačiūnas, the founder and godfather of the Fluxus movement. For a new art trend that everyone could join, Mačiūnas chose the word Fluxus, which in Latin means flow, movement, change, exchange. Name “Fluxus Labas!” at once fitted Kaunas 2022 community program, which is also an invitation for every resident without any special preparation to join creative process and be with others – to greet and make friends. The concept of “Fluxus Labas!” reminds of the attempts of Jurgis Mačiūnas and other Fluxus artists to eliminate boundaries between professionalism, elitism and simple / every day and playful creativity. Fluxus art is open and engages to participate everyone who wants.
Manifest of community program Fluxus Labas!
Combining different disciplines
Randomness
Adventurousness
DIY culture and aesthetics
Simplicity
Continuous change of movement
Disappearing boundaries between life and art
Escaping everyday routine
Process Design of „Fluxus Labas!“Community Program:
In carrying out our activities, we follow the scheme below:
Local context: local community, the identity of the place and local people, the identity of the neighborhood, history (formal and informal), people (local resources) and the ‘energy’ that lies there.
The context of Kaunas 2022: not through separate programs, but through the ideas they disseminate: community spirit, heritage community, heritage management, accessibility, etc., the context of Kaunas city after 2022.
Processes: purposeful actions – research, creation, product development; creative processes unfold in a specific neighborhood through the challenges (i.e., the challenge / problem to solve) and involved people. In between of the three components there is a question / challenge, that community program encourages local communities to constantly raise, test, reformulate, question; Fluxus Labas! Community program works in the interaction of all these three parts (local context, Kaunas 2022 ideological level and process). In the process of activities, it is constantly asked how the challenge is related to the vision of the Community Program (inclusion, communication, entrepreneurship).
What is a facilitator of Fluxus communities (fluxus agent)?
Promoter and activator of community culture, catalyst of change, creative “networker”, initiator and guide of creative projects. The community facilitator (agent), acting in his territory (preferably where he lives or works), unites and helps to highlight the peculiarities and identity of the communities, visibility of talents, discovers the local “energy”. He is looking for ways to connect and involve people, helps them to support their activities and strengthens them. The community facilitator is his local representative in the Kaunas 2022 program, who seeks not to change, but to understand the community and to gather local residents or a community of common interests through activities inspired by creativity.
Rezultatai:
Lankytojai
Manifest of community program Fluxus Labas!
Community for us is:
Open people willing to act;
People who care about their environment and daily life these are people who connect other people,
who create chains of willing and active people,
who want to make everyday life easier and more colorful,
who combine different disciplines together and do not regret it,
who look for an adventure in their living environment,
who are not afraid of coincidence,
who are not afraid to make mistakes,
who seek for mystery and intrigue in their living environment,
who are not afraid to ‘do it themselves’ or to ask others for help,
who appreciate value of activities not through the amount of invested money, but through amount of voluntary and benevolent involvement of people,
who seek for simplicity in a complex everyday life,
who are not afraid of motion and change,
which eliminate the line between art and life,
who “move” themselves and try to move the neighbor out of everyday life and routine…