Vague Wagon International Art Festival is a multidisciplinary festival with a non-hierarchical approach. It seeks to foster dialogue between different spheres of society and is run by the artist couple Karina Kazlauskaitė and Klaus Leo Richter. It takes place during one summer week in the village of Kriaunos and its surrounding region in north-eastern Lithuania.

This year’s edition is called “Culture House”. Since this is our first event, we decided against the restriction of a special theme. Instead, we chose to be inspired by the place and its history, by our participating artists and focus on coming together and sharing a good and hopefully meaningful time. The name “Culture House” has good reason behind it, though. On one hand, it stands for our vision to add a festival with a progressive approach towards art and culture to this region. By this, to create variety for locals and attract visitors from the city. On the other hand, it stands for the building of the festival headquarter, where our main exhibition takes place. It was this building, the former culture house of Kriaunos that gave us the confidence to try something a bit bolder, something that we knew will involve a lot of work and dedication.

In these times of heightened tension, we know too well that culture can become a battleground and is used to exert influence by those who hold the means. The former culture house, too, is a monument to the history of manipulation of opinion. But for the locals it is mostly a place that once was filled with life, where many disco nights had happened, theater actors and acrobats once roamed the stage, where movies were watched on the big screen, where photo-prints were made in the darkroom on the third floor, and books were read in the library room, just a corridor away from the cantina. Today, the house stands empty for more than 30 years. We hope to put an end to the cultural pause of the building and to breathe new life into it.

The festival will run from the 12th until the 20th of July, it will host 3 exhibitions, many
workshops and lectures, as well as a concert with an after-party.
The opening will be on the same day as the 520th anniversary of Kriaunos. Which means that the opening day of the festival will coincide with the village fair. An independent event that will add to the cultural variety on the opening weekend.

In the main exhibition we will show painting, photography, a short film and video art from emerging artists that share their unique perspectives with us, alongside established Lithuanian artists. Just a short walk through the village’s park lies the congenial Kriaunos Museum. There we will showcase the exhibition “Inner Worlds” with works of two primitivist painters: Monika Bičiūnienė and Petronėlė Gerlikienė, who both started to paint in their last stage of life and each convince with a characteristic style.

In the village Audronys, at the Vienožinskis Memorial Museum, we will celebrate the birthday of Justinas Vienožinskis with the exhibition “Conversations with Justinas Vienožinskis” – where his paintings meet photography and textile art.

The workshops and lectures are an especially important part of the festival. We hope to create an atmosphere of meaningful exchange in offers that will range from painting the bus-station pavilion to exploring online literacy, discussing the oldest roots of country music to discovering the underground water streams of our region and more.

To close the festival, Algis Fediajevas will play a concert of acid folk, and Faustas Pocius will present his latest creations of electronic music, all followed by an after-party.

So come and join us! Sign up for a workshop and pack your swimwear – after your dose of
culture, the shores of Sartai lake in Kriaunos await for some cooling relaxation.