Is Kaunas a brat? Artificial Intelligence and the International Photography and Media Art Festival

In light of the spirit of our time, it is more than ever important to create spaces where various artists share: their doubts, their hopes, their reflections, and their inspirations. We are in need of inspiration and friendly spaces to find all these things to keep us going. This is especially important for young beginner artists, because finding a creative community to call your own can be difficult. The Photography and Media Arts Festival in Kaunas is largely created for these reasons, to build bridges among different-level artists and question artistic anxieties, so that talents and ideas would not remain trapped in their own heads or social bubbles.

This festival was largely created for these reasons – to burst isolated artistic bubbles and build bridges between artists, art and community, and to raise questions about anxieties in art and society. Last year’s theme was Artificial Intelligence and this year the theme is “Life Stories”.

Typical for Lithuanian heritage, ambition and hunger for change, this is what leads its people, so it does not come as a surprise that people from this city, a city that is usually given second-class status and rights in the cultural domain in comparison with the capital Vilnius, come up with original ideas and innovations in cultural field. Because Kaunas and its people need it. In 2022 Kaunas was selected as the European capital of culture, and in 2023 its unique Art Deco architecture became part of the UNESCO world heritage list. Kaunas pushes forward and fights for recognition. Kaunas does it in classic, mainstream ways, but also unconventional, bold and informal ways, like an ambitious but mischievous teenager. Is Kaunas brat? That is a question yet to be answered. By you. You just need to come to Kaunas. To this year’s IPMA Festival, 1-31 October.

“Life stories” and the inner teenager

This year’s festival, with the theme “Life Stories”, is inspired by existentialism in its most honest form. The different colours and takes on life, reflected in art, help in difficult times and inspire us for life itself. Life stories remind us that life has many colours and is bubbling with different flavours. As the Chinese proverb says, sweetness, sourness, bitterness, spiciness – all must be tasted.

What can a life story be and how can it be told in an inclusive, sensitive, and humane way, reflecting the authenticity of life, these and similar questions are asked in this year’s International Photography and Media Arts Festival. The theme of the festival, defined in two words, is open and encourages us to perceive media as a tool that gives us the freedom to reflect, rather than a cage that restricts our thinking. This year, the festival is spiced up by the exhibition of the coloured archive by Antanas Sutkus, the exhibit is symbolic of the festival and emphasises the variety of life colours, this way loudly claiming the theme of this year’s festival.

The works submitted for the festival during the open call were judged by an international jury, including participants of the first IPMA Festival. The works selected for the theme “Life Stories” will be exhibited at the IPMA exhibition from 1-31 October. The exhibitions will take place at the Mykolas Žilinskas Art Gallery in Kaunas.

The Photography and Media Arts Festival will present the seemingly trivial but inevitable question that accompanies us every day: what does it mean to live authentically? This is why Kaunas is sort of brat, because like a teenager who has discovered existentialism, Kaunas reminds us of the need to reflect on the fundamental questions about life that may have been forgotten by adults. This reflection will be carried out by professional artists from all over the world. This year, the Photography and Media Arts Festival once again asks fundamental questions about human existence and invites you to come to Kaunas and bring your inner teenager to wake up and challenge the adult in you.

Full article first published in “Šiaurės Atėnai”. September 20, 2024. #14 (1442)
Author: Audrė Gruodytė