Ringaudai l Contemporary Neighborhood
Smooth transition between nature and the city, this is how the settlement in Kaunas district is called. This young eldership in a rout to finding identity. And for exactly this reason in 2019, a creatin of a movie was started by Gvidas Kovėra “Ringaudai – how we created a community”. The film trailer was premiered in the sports’ hall of the elementary school of Ringaudai. Amazing, that the place became a cultural centre for the occasion. Visitors had a chance to meet the local talents and see their potential. For example, in the event, Marius Paulikas performed with his experimental music improvisation. A local ensemble “RASA” also participated and for those who wanted to learn more about cinema, an opportunity was presented to listen to a discussion between VMU as. Prof. Gediminas Jankauskas and Rytis Zemkauskas. The event even grasped the attention of the little ones: they did not mis a chance to become film superheroes and Inga Dagilė’s scoreboard did not leave anyone unmoved. She also gladly shared her impressions about the event: “The film trailer of Ringaudai was amazing. I was most impressed and amazed by the chosen location and its transformation. I wouldn’t have thought that it is possible to change a sports’ hall so unrecognisably using only lights. The big, spacious location looked majestic and modern. Near the hall, the areas for children were thoughtful and well developed. What made me happy was the mindset about visualisation of the event and attention to different age groups. This and other, similar in quality and modernly organised events by the elderships are needed to propel the communities.” It is also worth mentioning, that the organisers encouraged the audience to bring homemade pastries to share with each other and eat with a cup of coffee. A cosy gesture for developing a sense of community.
While the movie was being created the actions in the settlement did not stop. People celebrated the day of neighbours, gathered in workshops, participated in photography laboratories and in workshop meetings. After a year they could already gather in the 1st fort, in which the creation of the movie ending happened along with an opening of the community’s photography exhibition. Here an artist Povas on fire (Povilas Kupčinskas) surprised everyone by organising a visual art event in which he covered a building in soot. The creator decided to use the surrealistic ‘fumage’ technique, which point is to use smoke from candles and oil lamps on paper or canvas, but in this case – the building’s walls. In the author’s words: “Because these are the fort and therefore history an idea came to me that it should be like a dream about the past.” This is how the name was born for creation.
Raimondas Pužas has displayed his creations in a virtual exhibition cycle “Meet the living ones and creating ones in Ringaudai” He content about the fact, that he has lived here for eight years and that he can contribute to the developing community: “Photography for me is a calling and a job. This part of life is a stopped film that gifts history for future generations.
Until the goal “from traditional to contemporary settlement” there is some time, therefore the people of Ringaudai decided that in the year 2021 they will create an Almanac for their town. The Almanac contain people’s who live in Ringaudai and are photographers, writers, painters, composers, and other artists and inhabitants of the town stories, photographs, illustrations and other results of the creative process. The inhabitant will travel through different creative and educational workshops and will also be collecting previously unheard information about their town. It is believed that the creation of Alamac will help the community awaken and will strengthen eldership’s creative potential. While the community awaits its book, in the summer of 2021 people in Ringaudai will be taught about how to create their small personal for family, friends, streets Almanacs. During these workshops, people will develop their own personal, unique and one-of-a-kind publication with an individually created and personalised cover and they will be able to bring home the creation on the same day. On a road to creating the big Alamac, a group of artists and creators: Andrius Sarapinas, Kastytis Laužadis, Inga Dagilė, Neringa Daniulaitienė, Marius Paulikas will guide. Without a doubt, the involvement in the creative process will bring uniqueness and will have a tremendous impact in developing the local community’s creativeness, personal identity understanding and encouraging the creative impulses of the local people. Everyone from the community who wishes can join the Ringaudai creative process. It will be really interesting, so it is worth not only follow the actions of the community but to also visit this transforming community and seeing everything with your own eyes.
Statistics shortly In 2019, 40 people got involved in the making of the Ringaudai film process. In the presentation, there were over 60 participants and over 200 audience members. In 2020, in Ringaudai one event and 19 activities were organised. In all activities, 94 participants gathered and, in the event, over 300 people were in the audience. Good news, in 2020 Ringaudai attracted sponsorships and to the creative process, 4 partners and 5 professional artists joined. In the year 2020 in Ringaudai 3 permeant art creations were developed: an exhibit, a film and a street art piece. We invite you to learn more about Ringaudai journey towards contemporary eldership and/or to dive deep into the adventure together. More information can be found by writing an email [email protected].
For the preparation of the text, we sincerely thank “Kaunas2022” culturists-volunteers Emilija Smilinskaitė and Aušrinė Vilimaitė.
The moments of the project “Contemporary Neighbourhoods” were eternalized by A. Aleksandravičius and M. Plepys.
More information about activities of the “Contemporary Neighbourhoods” project in Ringaudai can be found by clicking on the links below:
