Lithuanian cultural program in Tampere crowned with photography and dance performance for children
The program, which began in the spring in Finland’s second largest city, gave the Finnish cultural audience an opportunity to deepen their knowledge of Lithuanian cinema, music, contemporary dance, theater, and photography. Over the course of six months, the work of more than 30 Lithuanian artists was presented at five festivals in Tampere and in cultural venues with a rich tradition.
The events kicked off in March with the Tampere Film Festival, followed by a contemporary dance festival and the Tampere Guitar Festival in early summer. In August, the presentation of Lithuanian contemporary culture will move to the Nykyaika Photography Center and the Tampere Theater Festival.
The program is organized by the Lithuanian Culture Institute (LKI) together with Gabriele Žaidyte, Lithuanian cultural attaché in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland, in cooperation with festivals and organizations in Tampere and Lithuania, as well as the Embassy of the Republic of Lithuania in the Republic of Finland. The Lithuanian cultural program in Tampere was initiated by Liana Ruokytė-Jonsson, former Lithuanian cultural attaché in Sweden, Denmark, and Finland.
Documentary images and microorganisms
On August 8, the Nykyaika Photography Center will open exhibitions by photographers Tadas Kazakevičius and Ieva Maslinskaitė. Kazakevičius will present his internationally acclaimed series of documentary photographs, while Maslinskaitė’s works explore photography as a living process through creative collaboration with microorganisms.
“As an author, I am extremely pleased to see these two photographic series, “That Which Will No Longer Be” and “Sakartvelo Diary,” together. It is like a natural merging of different stages of my life and my creative journey. The series “What Will No Longer Be,” created in Lithuania, captures the changing reality of the Lithuanian countryside and its rapid decline, while the rich regional life I found in Sakartvelo was a great discovery for me and made me, as an author, return to the past of the Lithuanian countryside, which is still full of people and the poetry of everyday life,” said T. Kazakevičius.
In Ieva Maslinskaitė’s series In a Pupa, photography is reimagined as a changing organism, with bacteria and fungi actively participating in the image-making process. She cultivates microbes on large-format negatives, allowing them to organically alter the images. The series includes photographs in which microorganisms transform the surface of the image, as well as sculptures in which fungi grow from the pages and spines of books. These works challenge our understanding of photography as a stable, controllable medium.
The exhibition offers a rare opportunity to get acquainted with the works of two Lithuanian artists who are already well known in the international context, characterized by different but complementary approaches, demonstrating the various possibilities of photography as a means of artistic expression.
The Nykyaika Photography Center operates in the field of photography and media culture, promoting photography as a form of artistic expression and visual communication, encouraging interaction between photography and other art forms, and connecting photographers with their audiences. The association’s activities are based on regional and international cooperation and professional staff. Nykyaika began operating in 1982 and became a photography center in 1989. Since 1987, Nykyaika has been organizing international photography events.
Contemporary dance for children
On August 9 and 10, the Tampere Theater Festival will present the Finnish debut of the dance theater Dansema with its engaging dance performance for children, “The Unseen World,” designed for the visually impaired and blind. Created by choreographer Birutė Banevičiūtė, the performance allows young audiences to experience dance through movement, touch, and other senses.
Birutė Banevičiūtė, artistic director and choreographer of the Dansema dance theater, which has toured more than 30 countries, says that while working with visually impaired children, she realized one very important thing: they have to listen carefully when others explain to them how things work and what they look like. “Things like this reduce a person’s authentic connection with their environment. Our performance “The Unseen World” is designed so that blind or visually impaired children can experience the dancers’ movements on stage through the vibrations caused by their movements, touch the dancers and the set design created from various textures, and feel the atmosphere of the performance without verbal explanations. without verbal explanations, feel the dancers’ movements on stage through the vibrations caused by their movements, touch the dancers and the set design, which is made of materials with different textures that help children recognize different areas of the stage. During the creative process, we discovered that blind children recognize people by their scent, so now, before performances, we introduce the dancers to the children in the audience through body scent. This strengthens the children’s trust in the dancers and makes it easier for them to be on stage together,” said the choreographer about the performance in Tampere.
Founded in 1968, the Tampere Theater Festival is the oldest and largest professional theater festival in the Nordic countries, earning a reputation as a showcase for the best and newest Finnish theater productions. Every year, the festival attracts leading international guests from around the world. At the beginning of August each year, the city of Tampere becomes the theater capital of Finland, as local and international performing arts groups take over the city’s stages and squares. The festival attracts around 90,000 visitors to approximately 400 events, more than 200 of which are free of charge.
Partners of the program “Lithuanian Culture in Tampere 2025”: Lithuanian Photographers’ Association, Lithuanian Film Center, Lithuanian Short Film Agency “Lithuanian Shorts,” Lithuanian Dance Information Center, LRT, Tampere Film Festival, Tampere Dance Current, Tampere Guitar Festival, Tampere Theater Festival, Nykyaika Photography Center.