Image: Epiphanies by Mantas Lesauskas
This exhibition presents Lithuanian design as a long-term, layered process shaped by exchange, mentorship and the transmission of experience. Bringing together designers from different generations, disciplines and backgrounds, it foregrounds dialogue between academic and professional practice. Rather than focusing on finished outcomes, the exhibition traces the hidden histories of design: the networks of collaboration, influence and learning that inform creative practice and shape the identity of the designer.
Through selected works and practices, the exhibition offers a renewed perspective on Lithuanian design as a living and evolving tradition. It reconsiders craftsmanship in a contemporary context, shifting attention away from individual authorship towards relationships, community and shared knowledge. Design is presented as a collective endeavour, where the circulation of skills, values and ideas contributes not only to individual practices but to the ongoing formation of Lithuanian design as a field.
Bringing these ideas into material form, the exhibition presents objects, fashion, furniture, and light that explore relationships between body, material, craft, and environment. The works emphasise intuition, sensory engagement, and making as an ongoing process rather than a fixed result. Traditional Lithuanian materials and techniques are reinterpreted through contemporary, speculative approaches, creating a conversation between nature and technology, order and chance. In this way, the exhibited works embody design as a relational and evolving practice, where cultural memory is continuously reshaped through shared experience and present-day ways of making and living.
Organisers: Vilnius Academy of Arts Design Innovation Centre and Designforum Wien/designaustria