International art and history workshop ‘STATIONS OF GRIEF’ is an educational project that intends to connect the ones who lived through stalinist repressions (deportations, imprisonments) with the young students from humanitarian field of studies for a common discussion about historical experience.

The partner of the project is The Genocide and Resistance Research Centre of Lithuania. The Centre provided historical audiovisual material, consulted on the programme of the project, organized excursions to the Museum of Genocide Victims, and meetings with the deportees.

The project ‘Stations of Grief’ has several goals:

to introduce the first year students from the Baltic countries with the history of deportations and imprisonments in an informal and creative way;
to create original audiovisual project with an artistic value that represents the history of deportations, the experiences of the deportees and the political prisoners;
to encourage the young people to collect and preserve stories using audiovisual technologies;
to spread the information about Stalinist repressions to the young audience.

The intents of the project:

to initiate communication between different generations: the survivors of the Stalinist repressions (deportations and imprisonments) and young students from universities or art academies;
to draw the young people’s attention to the necessity of forming publicly available audiovisual archives of recent history and preserve the familial memory narratives;
to encourage usage of historical context for artistic reasons.

The process:

The process of the project is divided into the three major stages:

first stage – research of the historical context;
second stage – creative work;
third stage – public presentation, communication of the project ideas.

METHODS used: The process of the project combines active participation, in team work (discussions and seminars; filming, editing, recording, etc.) with individual work (personal research, collection of documentary material, script or text writing).

First stage:

In order to make an in-depth research of historical context, the participants meet with the survivors, participate in the screenings of documentary films, discussions with the documentary film makers, visit museums, art exhibitions, and memorial spaces.
On the last days the list of the basic ideas and concepts for the production of the video project are made and the participants make their first public presentation, organised in Tuskulėnai memorial centre of Vilnius. The purpose of such presentation is not only to inform the community of the deportees or local media about the project, but also to force the participants to structure the ideas, to absorb the given information and to share their way of thinking with others.

The first ideas:

Survival. What helped the deportees to survive and maintain their humanity while living under inhuman conditions?
System. System that broke humans’ and nations’ lives and destinies.
History. Visually represented history about arrests, deportations, imprisonments, every day life in places of deportations and the return of the deportees.
Dialogue. The possibility and the need of the dialogue between those, who experienced repressions and the young people.

The guests of the project (seminars, discussions, lectures):

The head of the Lithuanian Genocide and resistance centre Ms.T.B. Burauskaite, the director of the Museum of the Genocide Victims Mr.E. Peikštenis;
The community “Lapteviečiai“, that unites the deportees from the Laptev see region;
Political prisoner Prof. A.T. Geniušas;
Documentary film makers G. Beinoriūtė, A.Maceina, J.Lingys, J.Lapinskaitė, J.Ohman (Sweden);
Participants of the project „Mission Siberia“;

Between the stages. Working in distance:

While waiting for the second stage, the participants are asked to collect the documentary material and to make their own archives of stories, videos and photos. Also, the participants have to choose the most important statements they want to include in a common audiovisual project that will be made during the second stage of the project.
The collected material is shared and discussed using such communication tools as social networks. The purpose of working at a distance is to strengthen the relations among the members of the group.
The collected material includes: the interviews with grandparents or close relatives in Lithuania and Latvia, sound recordings; digitized letters, diaries and photographs.

The second stage:

The second stage of the project focuses on the production of the final video/audio project. The purpose of this stage is to learn to accomplish the ideas and to gain practical skills through interpersonal communication while sharing personal experiences and knowledge. During this stage, the participants are filming, recording, editing and creating the final audiovisual project which will be presented publicly in the Museum of Genocide Victims of Vilnius.

The third stage:

The aim of this stage is to prepare for the exposition and presentation of the final work and to put major information about the project and its outcomes into the publication, DVD and website. Also, the distribution of the communication tools through the public libraries, museums, research centres, universities or art academies in three Baltic countries starts.

Tangible results of the project:

1. The archive of documental material, created during the project (opens up the possibility to use the material in future projects):

Over 200 familial photographs collected and digitized;
60 letters digitized and photographed, 300 pages of diaries;
Almost 5 hours of audiovisual interviews with the deportees were made. Scripts and time codes included;
Collected and photographed documents and other objects related with deportations.

2. The audiovisual project Deportraitations. 8,5 minutes long audiovisual project combined from the collected historical material in the Baltic States. Various audiovisual techniques (computer graphics, animation, filming, sound editing, etc.) used to explore the possibilities to express personal ideas and insights of the participants. All created by the participants, supervised by documentary filmmaker Janina Lapinskaitė (Lithuania).
3. Articles, radio program, presentation of the project at Vilnius Pedagogic University made by the participants;
4. Spread of information in various media channels about the history of deportations and the project ideas (Lithuanian National TV and Radio, student radio channel, internet media, newspapers in Latvia and Lithuania).

Impact:

The successful spread of information about historical context and necessity to collect and preserve familial memory narratives, photographs and other documents or objects;
Spread of information about the creative ways that could be used to learn / teach history;
Successful cooperation between different generations;
New professional experience of participants;
Strong relations between the participants leading to the future projects.

Thoughts of the participants:

“A lot of people feel that have lost their values, they don’t know who they are any longer. But if we’d look at the recent history of our grandparents, we’d see that they had very strong values and that we haven’t lost them, its’ just that we forgot them over those 50 years of repressions and living behind the iron curtain.
For me the greatest idea was said by the former political prisoner, guest of the project, Prof. A.T. Geniušas. He said that we – Lithuanians, Estonians, and Latvians – we all are Europeans. And that all our values come from the European tradition of thought – from Greeks and Romans. And that we carry them in us. Yes, we are the Balts, the Lithuanians, though we are Europeans as well and we shouldn’t separate ourselves, but rather incorporate ourselves into the common world.”
Albina Griniūtė, Baltic Film and Media School,
Studies of Audiovisual Media (Estonia)

Evaluation:

The project was definitely successful and necessary. I haven't expected the outcome – the documentary movie - to be so good. But the most important for me was the communication itself, remembrance of the history and sharing the experience.
Vita Lažinskaitė, Vilnius Art Academy,
Studies of Audiovisual Art (Lithuania)

I learned a lot about other fields of studies and mastered my practical skills in journalism/multimedia/sound editing. That was a major turning point in my professional career, giving self-assurance about being capable of actually creating something. It was an amazing experience with needed topic, great organizers' support and amazing participants.
Monta Neinberga, University of Latvia,
Studies of Communication (Latvia)

This project was useful for me, since now I know that history can be used as a tool to gather different people with different opinions for the same purpose. Also this project gave me some examples of how history can be shown in a non-boring perspective.
Tadas Vaitkus, Vilnius Pedagogical University,
Studies of Applied History (Lithuania)