Symposium “Walking is still honest*: about being and moving together” in Vilnius, 5-7 October

Save the dates – October 5–7^th, 2023 is going to be a meeting point in Vilnius (Lithuania) for artists and researchers working with walking. The 3 days symposium “Walking is still honest*: about being and moving together” at SODAS 2123 will host diverse practices on walking and being together. Performative artists’ and researchers’ talks will be accompanied by embodied walks, workshops and walkshops. Participation is free of charge; however, the number of places is limited in specific workshops – you will need to register onsite. Let’s walk together in Vilnius!

Full programme at https://sodas2123.lt/en/walking/

Participants list:
Matthew Beaumount, Elena Biserna, Todd Shalom, Karen O’Rourke, Francesco Careri, Kipras Dubauskas, Felipe Steinberg, Clementine Butler-Gallie, Hemen Heidari, Marina Menéndez-Pidal, She Meihuizi (Anita She), Charlie Fox, Frida Robles Ponce, General Assn. (Alyssa Grossman and Selena Kimball), Kamila Wolszczak, Inga Truskauskait?, T. Hugh Crawford, Candice Salyers, Lucile Bouvard, Elina Mikkilä, Ivan Pope, Gust? Kripait?, Balázs Gáspár, Andrew Brown, Paul Landon, Mari Keski-Korsu, James Cunningham, Elena Peytchinska, Sepa Sama with Jumana Hamdani, Hillside Projects (Emily Berry Mennerdahl and Jonas Böttern), Claire Gauzente, Ondrej Buddeus, Hanns Holger Rutz, Karl Ingar Røys.

Topic
The current ecological and migration crises, the post-pandemic situation and new forms of virtual coexistence, growing cities and new urban planning solutions, which change our daily trajectories or restrict natural human movement altogether – all this sets the context for the growing artistic and scholarly interest in walking and its meaning in our lives, communities and societies.

The title of the symposium refers to the eponymous song “Walking is Still Honest” by the punk rock band “Against Me!”. Laura Jane Grace, its lead singer, has said in an interview that she wrote the song when she was 18 years old, terrified of what was happening in the world – the only thing that seemed real and honest to her at the time was the simple act of walking. In this symposium, we invite you to remember this insight and try to convey the sincerity of real or imaginary walking through a variety of practices, methods, actions, groups, communities, stories, etc. of being and walking together. Perhaps this may be a key to different, universal forms of being together that are resistant to time, identity, generations, virtuality, urban and other problems?

Organized by the Vilnius Academy of Arts, the cultural centre SODAS 2123 and the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association (LTMKS), the symposium aims to bring the insights of some of the most important contemporary historians and theoreticians of psychogeography and walking of the last few decades into dynamic practices of contemporary art and culture – about and through walking. Using artistic and research tools we will explore, justify, and consolidate insights into walking as a method of creation, thinking, being together, education and place research. We will also discuss, when walking is a pleasure, vocation or mission, when it is a necessity or even a compulsion; how contemporary urban policies encourage, limit, suppress, or commodify walking; how walking and its meaning have changed historically; what neurotechnological tools tell us about the physiology and psychology of walking today.

Publication
Selected texts and documentation will be published in a peer-reviewed volume (forthcoming 2024).

Scientific-artistic committee
Dr. Vitalij ?erviakov, Dr. Lina Michelkevi??, Dr. Vytautas Michelkevi?ius, Danut? Gambickait?, Lina Rukevi?i?t?.

Chief curator: Vitalij ?erviakov

Co-curators: Danut? Gambickait?, Lina Michelkevi??, Vytautas Michelkevi?ius

Coordinator: Neda Rimait?
Designer: Laura Grigali?nait?

Organizers: Vilnius Academy of Arts, SODAS 2123, Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists Association (LTMKS).

SODAS 2123 cultural centre is a self-governing community-based space, operated and curated by the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association. It brings together creators and researchers from different fields, with practices based on experimentation, developing unexpected formats, and responding to the latest cultural, social, geopolitical and ecological issues.

With over 50 artists’ studios, rehearsing studios for bands, offices for design, film and visual arts organisations, exhibition spaces, event spaces, various workshops, a cafe, a public outdoor garden space, a public allotment, and more, SODAS 2123 provides space for a variety of art and cultural disciplines, and each resident of the complex is open to sharing, learning and craftsmanship.

The artistic research community of Vilnius Academy of Arts has 32 practice-based doctoral researchers in the arts (fine art, design, and architecture), 7 postdoctoral researchers and a few dozen senior researchers and professors.

They constantly organize research exhibitions, seminars and symposia. The next upcoming event – the artistic and research Symposium “Not Quite King, Not Quite Fish” will happen in Vilnius on the 8–11^th of November, 2023.

Supporters: This project has received financial support from the Research Council of Lithuania (LMTLT), agreement No S-PD-22-47, Lithuanian Council for Culture and Vilnius City Municipality.

BIOS:

Vitalij ?erviakov is a Vilnius-based artist, who in 2022 graduated from Vilnius Academy of Arts with a Doctor of Arts (DA) degree for the art project on performative walking practices “Walking as a pretext and space in contemporaneity”. He participates in exhibitions and leads psychogeographical performative walks determined primarily by particular locations and rules set up by the artist, group dynamic, and different walking experiences. In 2017 at the National Gallery of Art Vilnius he co-curated the exhibition “Citynature: Vilnius and Beyond”, which combined artistic and scientific research, and was accompanied by artist residencies and a catalog. From 2011 he has also been working in various educational projects based on his artistic practice. https://vitaleus.com/

Danut? Gambickait? is an art critic, curator and organizer of cultural events, exhibitions, film screenings, residency programmes, etc. Currently, she is the Chair of the Lithuanian Interdisciplinary Artists’ Association (LTMKS), the director of the cultural centre SODAS 2123 and the curator of the gallery “Atletika”. In her curatorial activities, collective curating and writing are important to her, and have been a conscious part of her career since the very beginning. She has edited a book that crowns her field of interests “Choreografija: meno rašymas šiuolaikin?je dail?s kritikoje” (Choreography: art writing in contemporary art criticism, 2019).

Lina Michelkevi?? is an art historian with a background in philology and semiotics. Since 2014 she has been working as a researcher at the Institute of Art Research, Vilnius Academy of Arts. She is the author of the book “B?ti dalimi. Dalyvavimas ir bendradarbiavimas Lietuvos šiuolaikiniame mene” (Being Part. Participation and Collaboration in Lithuanian Contemporary Art, 2021), and has (co)edited books and peer-reviewed volumes, among them “Mapping Lithuanian Photography: Histories and Archives” (2007), “Education In, For and Through Art” (2017), “Atlas of Diagrammatic Imagination” (2019). Her field of interests cover cultural and social participation, pedagogical tools in art, and convergent forms of art and research. https://vilnius.academia.edu/LinaMi

Vytautas Michelkevi?ius is a curator, writer and researcher, whose focus was gradually shifting from photography in the expanded field to media art & theory, and lately to artistic research in academia and beyond. 2010–2019 he was the artistic director of Nida Art Colony. Since 2019 he is the Head of Photography, Animation and Media Art Department, and Doctoral Programme in the Arts – both in Vilnius Academy of Arts. Among the most recent books are “Mapping Artistic Research. Towards Diagrammatic Knowledge” (2018) and “Atlas of Diagrammatic Imagination” (co-edited with Lina Michelkevi??, 2019). He (co)curated Inter-format symposiums (2011–2019), www.umede.lt festival (continuous), the Lithuanian Pavilion in the Venice Biennale (2017), Ars Electronica Vilnius Garden (2020), and Campus exhibition at Ars Electronica, Linz (2022). https://vilnius.academia.edu/VytautasMichelkevicius