Ancient Woods Foundation Archives - Neringa Forest Architecture

NERINGA FOREST CLASSROOM

Neringa Forest Architecture — Wed, 08 Jan 2025 13:23:03 +0000

The Children’s Forest Pavilion has returned to the woodlands of the Curonian Spit to function as a destination for forest walks and environmental education workshops. Between 16 to 23 August 2023 the Neringa Forest Classroom was installed in the old-growth forest in Juodkrantė. This installation will evolve throughout the autumn and winter to include work by the Children’s Forest Pavilion contributors to continue the adaptation of the Venice installation to suit the context of the Neringa forest. Starting in October, the Neringa Forest Classroom will host a new experimental educational cluster program, a collaborative effort between Neringa Gymnasium, Neringa Municipality, Curonian Spit National Park, and Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts.

The Neringa Forest Classroom is a continuation of the Children’s Forest Pavilion, Lithuania at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023.

21–24 October 2024
Curonian Spit National Park Nature School, Nida

25–29 November 2024
Neringa Forest Classroom, Juodkrante
Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts, Nida

As part of the Neringa Municipality initiative to promote the development of an Educational Cluster that connects Neringa Gymnasium with art and cultural organisations in the Neringa and Klaipėda regions, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts, in collaboration with the Curonian Spit National Park and the Old Growth Forest Foundation, is conducting the first series of outdoor educational activities. This programme focuses on exploring the dynamics of ecosystems within the forests, coastal areas, and sand dunes of the Curonian Spit, with a strong emphasis on biodiversity and understanding human impacts on nature.

This educational programme brings together teachers from Neringa Gymnasium, environmental educators, botanists, mycologists, and artists in a cross-sectoral initiative that encourages experiential learning and interdisciplinary collaboration. By connecting natural sciences and the arts, the programme provides students and participants with a holistic perspective on environmental stewardship, fostering a deeper understanding of the local landscape and its delicate ecological relationships.

The programme begins with a session led by Curonian Spit National Park educator Gvidas Laukaitis. Over the course of four days, from 21 to 24 October, students from four classes in grades 1–4 engage in outdoor explorations to learn about the unique formation of the sand dunes that define the Curonian Spit. They study the varying sizes and characteristics of sand grains, observing how natural forces shape the dunes over time. Through extensive guided walks and practical exercises such as building a model of the protective dune using sand and natural materials, the pupils experience the dunes up close, gaining an understanding of their meaning to the local ecosystem and how they interact with surrounding flora and fauna.

From 25 to 29 November, Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts hosts a session focused on understanding the delicate ecological processes within an old-growth forest, led by Sengirės Fondas experts: mycologist Aurelija Pluke and botanist Vilma Gudynienė. These sessions take place within the forest and are joined by artist Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė, who guides participants in translating and deepening their forest experiences by exploring the intricate forms and representations of slime moulds and lichens on a molecular scale, revealing a spectrum of unique colours and forms and allowing participants to observe and appreciate the hidden complexity of these forest organisms, transforming scientific exploration into an artistic lens on biodiversity.

Their work is supported by the environmental educator Riita (Nyyskä) Nykänen from Mustarinda Association in Finland. Nyyskä develops learning materials and introduces new approaches to outdoor environmental education supporting learning in nature, proposing teachers with new tools and strategies for engaging students with their natural surroundings.

The outdoor programme is centered around the Neringa Forest Classroom, a structure with a roof and seating platforms nestled within Juodkrantė’s old-growth forest, along the dendrological path near the ‘Sound Catcher’ installation. This classroom serves as both a continuation and the final phase of the Children’s Forest Pavilion, initially presented as Lithuania’s pavilion at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023. Constructed entirely from timber sourced from the Curonian Spit, the pavilion was originally designed as an educational playscape for the biennale, with the aim of relocating it to the Neringa forests as a permanent, publicly accessible installation. This transformation allows the classroom to continue its purpose as a site for ecological and cultural education, welcoming all who wish to explore and learn from the surrounding natural landscape.

During the five days of environmental workshops, the Neringa Forest Classroom – whose structure subtly blends with the fragile forest landscape – acts as a starting and gathering point, a natural landmark from which pupils can embark on exercises that deepen their engagement with the ecosystem, immersing them in the very environment they are learning about.

Educators: Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė, Aurelija Pluke and Vilma Gudynienė (Sengirės Fondas), Gvidas Laukaitis (Curonian Spit National Park), Riita (Nyyskä) Nykänen (Mustarinda Association)
Curators: Jurga Daubaraitė, Egija Inzule, Jonas Žukauskas
Educational programme coordinator: Dovilė Lapinskaitė

Neringa Forest Classroom architecture: Jonas Žukauskas in collaboration with Antanas Gerlikas, Jurgis Paškevičius, Anton Shramkov

Forest Time, texts – Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė, Slime Mold Spores – Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė, Mountain Pine Alphabet – Mantas Peteraitis

Produced and created by: Neringa Forest Architecture
Implemented by: Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts

Partners: Curonian Spit National Park, Lithuanian National Forestry, Mustarinda Association, Neringa Gymnasium, Neringa Municipality, Sengires Fondas

Project financed by: Lithuanian Council For Culture, Neringa Municipality

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Poster – ANCIENT WOODS FOUNDATION

Neringa Forest Architecture — Thu, 14 Dec 2023 17:08:14 +0000

In poster-form, Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė presents a case study of the Ancient Woods Foundation – an organisation campaigning for the preservation of the few remaining old-growth forests in Lithuania. A consortium of biologists, botanists, environmental scientists, as well as artists and filmmakers, the NGO aims to preserve the most ecologically valuable old-growth forests and the life forms they contain, and to establish enduring public forests in Lithuania as blueprints for thriving ecosystems.

PDF of the poster is available via this link

Unless otherwise stated, maps, research, text and drawings: Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė
Design: Monika Janulevičiūtė
Copy-editing: Gemma Lloyd, James Nixon Publisher: Kirvarpa

Edition: 1100

Thanks to Mindaugas Survila, dr. Mindaugas Lapelė, Rimantė Paulauskaitė-Digaitienė and Dr. Ainis Pivoras of the Ancient Woods Foundation, who contributed their knowledge to this poster. Learn more about their work: www.sengiresfondas.lt

Published on the occasion of the CHILDREN’S FOREST PAVILION
Lithuania at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition – La Biennale di Venezia 2023

Organised by: Neringa Forest Architecture
Implemented by: Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts
Supported by: Lithuanian Council for Culture

PDF of the poster is available via this link

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mindaugas — Sun, 26 Mar 2023 08:13:02 +0000

Children’s Forest Pavilion
Lithuania at the 18th International Architecture Exhibition –
La Biennale di Venezia 2023

18 May – 26 November 2023

2125 Campo Tana, Castello, Venice
(opposite the entrance to the Arsenale)

The Children’s Forest Pavilion is composed as a playscape and conceived to acknowledge the unique approaches of children to observe, draw conclusions, explain the forest, and demand agency in forming it. This project brings together works and findings developed in parallel to outdoor activities held with children in woodlands in Lithuania and Finland. Guided by environmental educators, activists, artists, architects, and foresters, they were introduced to think of forests as negotiated spaces where no single actor has a central stake.

Located directly opposite the entrance to the Arsenale, the pavilion’s installation is both an architectural object and a conceptual structure, meandering through a Venetian patio house, and allowing different formats of discussion, interaction and play. It is made out of timber from trees on the Curonian Spit that have, over several years, been collected in an archive at Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts as part of the project Neringa Forest Architecture. Combined with film installations, worktables and play structures, the architectural elements in the pavilion support the research and learning environment of the exhibition, which shows how the children that participated learned about ancient forests, primordial swamp landscapes and long processes of geological formations.

Through the outdoor activities, the children explored the forest at various levels of scale and perception, looking at the growth patterns of lichens, investigating chemical pollution molecules through augmented reality, and discovering sounds from reverberations of ancient and living timber, among other things. The exhibition includes an alphabet made of the branches of hundred-year-old mountain pines, a space with supersized shadows, as well as computer-generated spores and slime moulds in a myriad of shapes and forms, and invites visitors to play and learn about forests, as architectural and infrastructural spaces: environments of natural systems governed, exploited, and regulated by human interventions, technologies, industries, institutions and agencies, but also places of depleting biodiversity.

The Children’s Forest Pavilion is conceived as an educational tool with the potential to ‘branch off’ and connect to other spatial and thematic elements. At the end of the Biennale Architettura 2023, it will return to the woodlands of the Curonian Spit where it will function as a destination for forest walks and environmental education workshops. The pavilion is organised by the Neringa Forest Architecture project that was initiated in 2020 to reflect on the agency of cultural practices and institutions in framing environmental relationships. The project has its starting point in Nida Art Colony, a subdivision of Vilnius Academy of Arts, located in the Lithuanian part of the Curonian Spit. As a continuous programme, Neringa Forest Architecture involves a growing assembly of collaborations and participants to read the cultural landscape of the area from multiple perspectives and practices as a case study in the context of the forests of the region.

Opening: 18 May at 3pm

Opening hours: Tuesday – Sunday
19 May – 30 September: 11am – 7pm
1 October – 26 November: 10am – 6pm
Closed on Mondays (except 22 May, 14 August, 4 September, 16 October, 30 October, 11 November)
Admission to the pavilion is free of charge.

Contributors: Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė, Ancient Woods Foundation, Gabrielė Grigorjevaitė, Laura Garbštienė, Mustarinda Association (Tiina Arjukka Hirvonen, Michaela Casková, Robin Everett, Riitta (Nyyskä) Nykänen), Mantas Peteraitis, School of Creativity (Kristupas Sabolius), New Academy (Ikko Alaska, Nene Tsuboi, Tuomas Toivonen), Urbonas Studio (Nomeda & Gediminas Urbonas), Kornelija Žalpytė

Curators: Jurga Daubaraitė, Egija Inzule, Jonas Žukauskas
Commissioner: Ines Weizman
Architecture: Jonas Žukauskas in collaboration with Antanas Gerlikas, Jurgis Paškevičius, Anton Shramkov

Graphic design: Monika Janulevičiūtė
Poster illustration: Izadora Daubaraitė Žukauskaitė
Moss hats and shalws: Banan Vedro, Circulation of Infernation, Doch, Heorhii Hohatadze
Video production: Eitvydas Doškus, Elis Hannikainen
Video editing: Ignė Narbutaitė
Lighting: Martynas Kazimierėnas
Photo documentation: Rasa Juškevičiūtė
Coordination: Dovilė Lapinskaitė

Coordination in Venice: Marco Scurati
Communication: Stefanija Jokštytė, Anna Luise Schubert, Alexandra Bondarev
Translation and proofreading: Alexandra Bondarev, Gemma Lloyd
Project assistant: Vilius Vaitiekūnas
Pavilion attendants: Rugilė Akambakaitė, Magdalena Beliavska, Augusta Fišerytė, Aistė Gaidilionytė, Rimantas Giedra, Gustė Kripaitė, Marta Dorotėja Lekavičiūtė, Gabija Naikauskaitė, Viktorija Narbutaitė, Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė, Gabrielė Vrublevska
Accounting: Rasa Bliakevič
Legal consulting: Neringa Savickė, Kotryna Volodkaitė

Organised by: Neringa Forest Architecture
Implemented by: Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts
Partner: Centre for Documentary Architecture
Supported by: Neringa Municipality, Nordic Culture Point, Lithuanian Council for Culture, Baltic Culture Fund

Thanks to: Artnews.lt, Gražina Banienė, Adriano Berengo, Yulia Derenko, Gaetano di Gregorio, Aurora Fonda, Laura Gabrielaitytė-Kazulėnienė, Pranas Gudaitis, Monika Kalinauskaitė, Dr. Mindaugas Lapelė, Laguna nel Bicchiere – Le Vigne Ritrovate, Marija Olšauskaitė, Rimantė Paulauskaitė-Digaitienė and Dr. Ainis Pivoras from the Ancient Woods Foundation, Viktorija Rybakova, Mindaugas Survila, Nida Forestry, Kretinga Forestry, the Curonian Spit National Park

Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts: Milena Černiakaitė, Vasilisa Filatova, Alberta Globienė, Giedrius Globys, Asta Jackutė, Dalia Jokūbauskaitė, Lina Košeleva, Aldona Lankauskienė, Elena Orlovienė, Daura Polonskytė, Ieva Skauronė, Yana Ustymenko, Katerina Vaseko, Tetjana Volosiuk

All the children, educators, and schools who participated in workshops in Lithuania and Finland
Puolankajärvi Comprehensive School (Puolanka, FI), Hyrynsalmi Comprehensive School (Hyrynsalmi, FI), Neringa Gymnasium (Nida, LT), Young Forest Friends (Kretinga, LT), Baltupiai Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Gerosios Vilties Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Emilijos Pliaterytės Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Pavilnys Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Sietuva Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Simonas Konarskis Gymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Simonas Stanevičius Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Vasily Kachalov Gymnasium (Vilnius, LT), Vilnius Sofya Kovalevskaya Progymnasium (Vilnius, LT)

Press contact:
International: Anna Luise Schubert, press@neringaforestarchitecture.lt
Lithuania: Stefanija Jokštytė, press@nidacolony.lt

Link to press pack.

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