‘What remains outside creativity’: an interview with Goda Palekaitė, curator of Rupert’s Alternative Education Programme

Interview by Milda Dainovskytė

For the 13th time, the Rupert centre for art, residencies and education invites artists and creative practitioners to participate in the Alternative Education Programme (AEP). Thirteen is a considerable number for an institution operating in the network of Lithuanian cultural institutions while subject to the unpredictable dynamics of cultural policy and funding. Over the past dozen-or-so years, AEP curators implemented numerous programmes, organised many seminars and meetings with curators, researchers and artists in various fields, while the programme’s participants saw a significant impact on their careers from these para-academic studies. Today, we are talking about the 13th AEP with its curator Goda Palekaitė, an artist and researcher whose work brings together different genres and practices from performance art and artistic research to literature, and who is currently exploring the mechanisms behind historical narratives, and the potential of dreams, imagination and fiction.

Milda Dainovskytė: Goda, you are curating Rupert’s 13th Alternative Education Programme, this year titled ‘The Secretary, the Shaman, the Scholar, the Lobbyist, the Publicist, and the Virtuoso’. These roles, either separately or all together, are often familiar to the participants of the art field, and the themes of self-management and self-regulation are particularly relevant for artists striving to survive, remain active, and navigate the art field ecosystem. What has inspired this year’s programme and, in your opinion, what could help us change the way we work?

Goda Palekaitė: This year’s AEP theme has been on my mind for a long time, in different forms and articulations. Back in 2015, I defended my master’s thesis in anthropology at the University of Vienna and published a book titled Conditions of Creativity. There, I took an ethnographic look at the performative practices active in Vilnius at that time, and at the methods and conditions involved: socio-economic and historical factors, urbanism etc. I tried to define creativity from the perspective of young artists without focusing on particular works. I was interested in how and why we create what we create and know what we know, and what is left behind – uncreated and unknown. It’s funny to remember now, but in one chapter of the book I was referring to Rupert in a bit sceptical way as a ‘networking institute.’

Ten years ago, it still seemed that there was a distinction between artistic practice and its management. Today, however, I notice that in many instances they are intertwined, merging and inspiring each other. I’m interested in how managerial or administrative work in art can be radicalised and how these structures themselves can inform artistic decisions. For example, one of this year’s guest tutors, Vijai Maia Patchineelam, a Brazilian-born artist and researcher now based in Berlin, is working on establishing a new, previously non-existent job position in art institutions. He is curious about how art and educational institutions might change if they employed at least one person as an artist with a steady salary and social security benefits. Curators have such opportunities, but artists are the only cultural actors constantly forced to do other people’s jobs. ‘The Secretary, the Shaman, the Scholar, the Lobbyist, the Publicist, and the Virtuoso’ is therefore an attempt to talk about all what remains outside ‘creativity’ and how it becomes part of creative practice.

M.D.: How did you discover empowering tools on your path as an artist? Can you share your personal discoveries and experiences with different educational platforms?

G.P.: I have a mixed background. I’ve been raised in a family where art and culture in general were present; I went to art schools since I was a kid. For my bachelor, I decided to study scenography and, at a very young age, started working in state theatres: as a set designer, a costume designer, and a director, but my experience in theatre was very frustrating. At least in Lithuania at that time, theatre was a rather toxic, patriarchal environment, occupied by people who had big egos but lacked clear professional and moral boundaries. To escape it, I began studying linguistics and literature – the fields that always fascinated me. Later I moved to Vienna where I stayed for many years, studying social and cultural anthropology. However, I was unable to break away from the creative practice. Over time, my ethnographic research and writings were increasingly transforming into artistic ones and vice versa, at first perhaps involuntarily. Eventually, eight years ago, I moved to Brussels and became involved in the work of the A.pass, an institute for artistic research. A.pass helped me understand the impact of intertwining creative and educational activities, and find a way to approach things that didn’t fit into any box professionally, i.e. to understand that dilettantism and lack of knowledge can be an advantage if you’re able to ask questions and think critically. This put me on a trajectory that I’m still following today: creating performances, installations, films, and writing, unattached to professional standards, instead following my subjects and questions, creating context that is different each time. This requires tools, skills, and trusting both your intuition and the people you work with, because each project requires a new methodology. My dream is to see Rupert become a key career chapter for AEP participants, just as A.pass was for me.

M.D.: In 2019, I participated in the AEP (curated by Adomas Narkevičius) together with my creative partner Laurynas Skeisgiela. The pre-pandemic year stood out from the ones before (and after), as curators and researchers were invited to join the programme alongside artists developing their artistic practice. An important part of this year’s programme is a trip to Brussels, where participants will have the opportunity to collaborate with Belgian collectives Level Five, Établissement d’en face, KASK Curatorial Studies, A.pass, and others. With several years of successful creative practice in both Brussels and Vilnius, you’re able to compare the two art fields. How do we look in the context of the Belgian capital?

G.P.: Brussels is great for artists because it is a city where many paths intersect and many fascinating creators, organisations, and initiatives meet. It has less of an elitist atmosphere than London or Paris, and instead offers relatively accessible creative opportunities, connections and inspiration. Also, the city’s diversity of languages, cultures, styles and lifestyles keeps your mind awake. Of course, it is also a politically, bureaucratically, demographically and logistically challenging city. I certainly don’t idealise it, but I am very happy to live there.

I’ve known the organisations you mentioned for a while. They are all different and interesting initiatives and they all tie in with this year’s AEP theme. For example, our closest partner, Level Five, is the largest artist-run organisation in Belgium, taking care of artists’ workplace and working conditions, contacts, presentation etc. It almost sounds like some public service but, in fact, Level Five is mostly DIY.

Meanwhile, the current Lithuanian cultural field, from galleries and institutions to funding models, is still very much a legacy of Soviet nomenclature and bureaucracy, the policy of closed doors and minding your own business. We achieve a lot through DIY too, but I think we need to learn to be more open, caring, and collectively minded. It is also obvious to me that there is a cult of production in Lithuanian art, which should really be a thing of the past. Nowadays, art can take the form of questions, conversations, gatherings, systemic and ideological shifts, and hundreds of other forms, including filling out Excel sheets. I don’t think we should be spending our cultural budget at the hardware store, buying single-use materials for yet another exhibition created by an unpaid artist.

M.D.: Over the past dozen-or-so years, as the curators of the AEP changed, so did its concepts. It is interesting to note, in retrospect…

G.P.: Indeed, the Rupert AEP has evolved and changed significantly over the years. First of all, because it is the only such programme of alternative art education, i.e., an interdisciplinary one, in Lithuania and even the entire region. So, there were many questions to ask and new methodologies to test. On the other hand, conceptually speaking, this programme is essentially in the hands of the curator. Of course, the whole team helps implement it, but its theme and structure are defined, and the tutors are selected, by a single person. So, it’s unsurprising that with each new curator, the programme changes significantly.

I myself would like to expand and grow the AEP into a conceptually radically experimental, but structurally more stable body. We shall see how it works out in these turbulent times. I believe that, especially in a world dominated by a multitude of polarised mechanisms of knowledge and sources of information, and in a time of widespread fear and mistrust, there is nothing more important than fostering alternative, independent, critical, ethical, and creative thought.

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This article is the first edition of Inside Stories, a series of features highlighting the people, labour, and ideas behind the scenes at Rupert.

Inside Stories is a pilot study for New Perspectives for Action, a project by Re-Imagine Europe, co-funded by the European Union and Lithuanian Culture Institute.