The workshop theme is connected to the living heritage of paganism in Lithuania and contemporary practices of neopaganism as subcultures for the young generation or religion for the older generation. Lithuania was the last nation in Europe to be converted to Christianity at the end of the 14th century. Many Lithuanians are still deeply attached to pagan customs, for instance, they celebrate “Rasa”, an annual ancient Midsummer festive.
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In Lithuania, Romuva is an ancient Baltic religious community which arranges annual festivals related to natural transformations, especially solstices and equinoxes: Spring Equinox, Summer solstice, Autumn Equinox, and Winter solstice. All the rituals connected to these activities take place outdoors. As we are getting more and more alienated from nature it is speculated that this causes a strain on our mental health. Communities such as Romuva are trying to reintroduce and revitalize traditions, rituals, and festivals to synchronize us once again.
The rituals and customs of the neo-paganistic community Romuva could be a starting point for the content creation in the workshop. Some of the practices and beliefs will be introduced during the workshop. Students will create in small groups concepts for experimental books including augmented reality features exploring the theme of the workshop - Mythology: Spirituality. One of the concepts will be selected for a further work on the book.
For each group, the main output will be a book spread (two large pages), which can be seen as a metaphorical “stage”, including different augmented reality elements, e.g., animations, videos, and sounds. Additionally, each group will document the embedded augmented reality functions as a video. Later, the workshop results will also be published as a zine. At the end of the workshop, on Saturday 24 September, there will be a one-day dissemination event, Rituals - A Dive into Lithuanian Mythology, where the workshop outcome will be presented to the public:
House of History
National Museum of Lithuania
A pop-up exhibition
Saturday 24 September from 13:00 to 18:00.
Location:
T. Kosciuškos g. 3, Vilnius, 1st floor
https://lnm.lt/en/museums/house-of-histories/
House of History
National Museum of Lithuania
Student presentations
Saturday 24 September from 13:00 to 15:00.
Location:
T. Kosciuškos g. 3, Vilnius, 1st floor https://lnm.lt/en/museums/house-of-histories/