CULTURAL EDUCATION

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07 CULTURAL EDUCATION One of the MO Museum’s top priorities is developing key competences for the 21st century – creativity, critical thinking, and the abilities to work together and communicate. We see the museum as a space for lifelong learning, so offering interdisciplinary cultural education for all age groups will always be one of the MO’s key objectives. Here is a brief overview of what we did in 2022 as regards cultural education for families, children and adults.

FOR FAMILIES AND CHILDREN

Family Sundays

The tradition of Family Sundays continued this year. During the Kaunas–Vilnius: Moving Mountains exhibition, we invited visitors to discover in game form what a city is, what it consists of and what is needed for it to exist. For the small BAXT exhibition, we organised a T-shirt making workshop with illustrator Akvile Magicdust. And alongside the international exhibition The Meeting That Never Was, we invited people to discover what pop art is, why it has so many colours, and how it’s related to Andy Warhol. Creative activities for children aged 3-8 years are organised at the MO Museum by the Pradžia Children’s Theatre.

Starting in October, a new activity was added to the Family Sundays offerings: creating computer game ideas with Code Academy Kids. We invite young people aged 10-16 to learn about computer game development and genres, and to create their own game concept: from original characters to a full game script!

MOmukai activity book

We continually work to address the needs of children and broaden their experience of exhibitions, which is why this year we added some new creative tasks to the MOmukai workbook.

MOmukai elements can also be found within exhibitions by scanning the QR code next to artworks and on the screen in the museum lobby.

Project partner:

MO educational activities with the Kazickas Family Foundation

One of the major goals of collaboration between the MO and the Kazickas Family Foundation is to introduce young people to modern art and develop abilities that will help them more easily integrate into society in the future. This is an initiative that every visitor to the MO can contribute to. Active for several years now, it has already benefited more than 1 000 young people from all over Lithuania.

MO summer camps for children

In June and July, there were three summer camps for children: two Creativity Camps and one Sensory Camp. At the Sensory Camp, we developed deep instincts. We explored the museum and the world of our imagination. The Creativity Camps, meanwhile, featured team and individual tasks: we created, we moved about, and we played.

Project partner:

Programme to improve young people’s emotional intelligence

A new educational programme started at the MO Museum in August that aims to enhance schoolchildren’s emotional literacy, reduce stress, and develop social-emotional skills through exposure to art. It is intended for students in years 5-8 at school from Vilnius and outlying areas.

Four sessions were held for improving the knowledge and practical skills of MO Museum educators and to strengthen emotional literacy and stress management competences.

According to the scientists, such emotional literacy educations are innovative on a global scale and deserve further development.

During art interventions, the young people said they improved emotional cognitive skills, including awareness of the variety of emotions, understanding of the relationship between emotions and the body, and awareness of the emotions of others.

Feedback from students who participated in the programme:

It made me realize that you shouldn’t hide your feelings.

I learned that [...] art can be not just beautiful but can also express a feeling, or several feelings at once.

I didn’t know you could feel so many emotions.

This project is funded by the National Fund for Public Health Enhancement.

Game for children in the MO lobby

Since October, another new experience awaits children in the museum’s lobby. For lively visitors who get to know the world by moving about, the MO’s lobby offers a game based on Arvydas Každailis’s Skrydis (Flight): the huge dice and squares inviting you to jump will appeal to more than just little ones.

Second Children’s Night at the Museum

We invited kids to a unique nocturnal adventure: a night at the MO Museum! Creative activities, a night-time orientation game, a treasure hunt, a concert by Keistuolių Teatras and Open Circle actors Jurgis Marčėnas and Justas Tertelis, and cinema at night – all after closing time at the museum!

The camp’s participants were supervised and led in the various activities by Keistuolių Teatras actors Eimantas Bareikis, Vaidotas Žitkus and Marija Korenkaitė and by MO educator Sandra Zubielaitė

I thought I’d be as lonely as a wolf, since I took part without knowing anybody, but the loneliness only lasted a few minutes – I very quickly made friends and the night was really great.

Karlas, a participant of the Children’s Night at the Museum

MOrathons

MOrathons, the culture festivals that have become a tradition for the opening of major exhibitions, continued this year. The MOrathon for the exhibition The Meeting That Never Was lasted two entire weekends!

CORE installation

In January, as part of the Vilnius Light Festival, the interdisciplinary art studio 1024 architecture’s audio-visual installation Core was exhibited at the MO.

The MO outdoors: events on the terrace

We welcomed people to spend the summer in our open spaces – on the MO Terrace. Besides well-loved events, we also added a few new ones. For the 100th anniversary of Jonas Mekas’s birth, the MO Terrace hosted talks about him. And for those keen to spend their evenings with music, we offered four acoustic concerts. Residents and guests of Vilnius also had the chance to enjoy poetry readings, which have been drawing visitors for years.

The MO’s birthday

This year we turned 4! We celebrated our birthday with the slogan “I pay what I want” as the MO team greeted visitors at the ticket office.

Over half a million people have visited us since the MO Museum opened.

Back2school

Ričardas Jankauskas’s traditional “Back2school” lecture series explored the styles of modernism and all the other “-isms” that baffle our ears, to learn how they have influenced the Lithuanian school of art.

Visit of Will Gompertz

An important and interesting encounter awaited art lovers and fans of the bestseller What Are You Looking At? on 15 October: Will Gompertz, the former BBC art editor and Tate Gallery director who is currently Artistic Director of the Barbican Centre for the Performing Arts in London, came to the MO Museum to give a lecture on contemporary art. 55

TEACHERS COMMUNITY

MO and British Council training for teachers mixed culture and education

The “Visual Thinking Exchange Through Art” project for teachers, carried out by the MO together with the British Council, has engaged more and more participants. The third edition of the training drew 145 teachers of varied subjects from all of Lithuania. They said the knowledge gained helps them get students talking, unleashing their imagination and creativity, and inspires new educational approaches.

It’s great to see that culture and creativity are increasingly being integrated into formal education. I sincerely hope that there will be more initiatives like this in the future.

Agnė Liucilė Andriuškevičienė, Adviser to the Minister of Education, Science and Sport

Teacher Passport Conference

Speakers at the annual MO Teacher Passport Conference this year shared neuroscience insights on modifiable and non-modifiable traits of children’s emotional intelligence. They also spoke on inclusive education, collaboration between cultural and educational institutions, and helping children with special needs feel a full sense of belonging at school.

We are delighted that so many people were keen to attend this year’s conference. The 120 places filled up within hours, and 400 other teachers joined remotely. The MO Teacher Passport community now includes 3 000 teachers. All of them can visit exhibitions free of charge and integrate the content into lessons.

We visit cultural institutions because that’s where you can see and learn about history. When we come to the MO Museum, we get to know ourselves and our students.

A physics teacher from Erudito Licėjus

Synergies of formal and non-formal education

Erudito Licėjus, a Major Partner of the MO, has helped develop key competences for the 21st century. Together with the school, the museum created a new joint educational activity for Erudito Licejus students, enhanced teachers’ skills, and shared best practices. On 16 June, the museum hosted a presentation of art by students from years 5-10 at the school. The project was linked to the museum’s Kaunas–Vilnius: Moving Mountains exhibition, ongoing at the time. It called on students to create art involving the ties between the cities of Kaunas and Vilnius. 57