Verpėjos (The Spinners) is artist run initiative founded in 2017 by artist Laura Garbštienė to research and discuss rural traditional lifestyle and nature preservation, activate discourse on changes and processes, both local and global.
Working with contemporary artists, curators, craftspeople and nature scientists we organise interdisciplinary workshops, symposiums and exhibitions.
VšĮ “Verpėjos” is non profit organisation which operates on a voluntaty basis.
Registration address: Miško g. 25, Šklėrių k., Varėnos r. sav., Lithuania
Reg.no: 305039184
IBAN: LT18 7300 0101 5815 1345
Verpėjos Residency finds its permanent location in 2022.
Our residency premises are a traditional homestead with residential log house, log house studio, orchard, garden, old oak and linden trees, fireplace and a herd of Skudde sheep.
Living house is a small, simply furnished house, which has to be shared by two artists living together.
It has two small rooms, a kitchen and a bathroom. There is plumbing, hot water,wood-burning stoves for cooking and bread baking, cold cellar, wi-fi. Bicycles are available.
Working spaces: Barn studio 40m2, log house studio 35m2 with wood heating and cooking stove,cold cellar and library. Outdoor spaces 600m2 with orchard, garden, old oak and linden trees and fireplace.
Equipment: manual tools for woodworking (hammers, axes, handsaws, planes, chisels, carving knives, workbench) and for wool processing (hand carders, spindles, spinning wheels, winder, niddy-noddy, swift), traditional weaving loom, felting mats, wool dyeing pots and supplies.
Materials: plenty of raw and carded wool and different types of wood (wood for green working can be provided upon request). Other local natural materials can be provided and used. We can provide assistance to traditional craftspeople in the area: straw garden maker, reed roofing master, tree beekeeper, basketry master, cheesemaker, band weaver, candlemaker.
At the nearby Dzūkija national park visitor centre we can connect artists to ecologists, geographers, ethnographers for consultations and guided tours.
Interdisciplinary artists are invited by open call or by invitation from every section of society regardless of their cultural background, sex, age or sexual orientation.
Verpėjos team select artist based on the following criteria: motivation to get up early and spend a lot of time outdoors with the sheep to immerse oneself in the processes of nature and the world of animals, insects, and plants without fear of bad weather; sustainable, eco-friendly and waste-free approach to the creative process and lifestyle; inclusion of traditional crafts and intangible heritage in their practise.
Creative Pastures Residency Programme runs for the grazing season from May to October. The artists work on their own research projects and are taking turns to be the rotating hosts of the residency homestead, living by two for 1-2 months at a time and shepherding our sheep.
We offer them an authentic rural experience, the opportunity to work closely with local people and animals and invite them to rethink the relationship between contemporary humans and theenvironment in the epoch of the Anthropocene.
Many theories bring new theories but not action. With shepherding we see every sunrise and sunset. Connections are perceived by being in a cloud of mosquitoes rather than by knowing facts. Human scale is too limited to register all parts of the environment, and attempts lead to simplification.
Understand their relationship possible with daily field practise, personalinteractions with personalities, not species. The time spent with animals transforms us from
tourists who consume the environment into participants in the sites. Extensive grazing is also essential to maintain habitats.
We apply interdisciplinary art methods of restoring and putting into practice traditional knowledge.
Shepherd’s Notes is a series of our publications, shepherd-artist’s guides in the land of sheep, composed of fragments of experiences and hints of artwork. We published 6 editions up to date.
Marcinkonys Station Gallery
The Marcinkonys Station Gallery is located at the last stop of the Vilnius-Marcinkonys railway line and has been curated by the independent art initiative “Verpejos” since 2019.
The space itself is already a work of art with distinct features of the wooden architectural heritage, and the building is included in the Register of Cultural Heritage of Regional Importance. Therefore, the proposal to create an exhibition for this space is a wonderful challenge and a task to create a dialogue with the space, its semantics and the contemporary context of the life of the local people, as well as with the natural and cultural heritage of Dzūkija National Park.
