Voice for Change
Lithuania is home to tens of thousands of refugees and asylum seekers. Many of them face limited opportunities to participate in public life. How can these communities be given a voice? How can art help us to understand one another?
Voice for Change was an artistic and social event series designed to open space for those whose stories often go unheard. The project consisted of two parts, in which artists from the arts agency Artscape worked together with refugee communities that had fewer opportunities to engage in society.
The first part of the cycle took place in Pabradė. Visual artists Nikolaj Urencev and Olesya Lukonina worked with dozens of adults living in the Pabradė Reception Centre, some of whom faced restrictions on their freedom of movement. The creative workshops provided a safe space for participants to share personal stories, which later became part of an audiovisual art installation.
The second part took place in Kaunas, at the children’s welfare centre Pastogė, and was dedicated to 15–18-year-old teenagers from Ukraine living in Lithuania without their parents. Over the course of three weeks of creative workshops and an art camp, and with the guidance of photographer and filmmaker Francesco Rufini, the young participants created visual stories about their experiences, the places they inhabited, and the thoughts they carried.
Through visual and audiovisual means, participants were able to express their identities, hopes, and perspectives, turning their creative work into an open invitation for the public to see, understand, and connect. The results – a series of artistic audiovisual stories – were presented at public exhibitions in Pabradė and Kaunas.
The Voice for Change initiative raised questions of culture and identity while exploring global and social change. Its main aim was to give participants not only the means to tell their stories through art, but also to develop their creative skills and foster empathy and mutual understanding.
The Voice for Change event series was part of the PERSPECTIVES project, co-funded by the European Union. It was implemented by the Goethe-Institut in partnership with the arts agency Artscape.
In Pabradė, Life Flows Differently
In the small town of Pabradė, on the eastern edge of Lithuania, life moves at a different pace. Here, in the Pabradė Reception Centre, people live as if in a parallel reality – some are allowed to leave the premises, others are not. Their lives are suspended between a past they fled and a future whose shape is still uncertain.
These are refugees and asylum seekers – people caught between bureaucratic obstacles, language barriers, and psychological strain. Behind fences, walls, and uncertainty, there is always a person worth understanding, hearing, and supporting.
It was with this in mind that artists from the arts agency Artscape – Nikolaj Urencev and Olesia Lukonina – spent a few months leading creative workshops at the Pabradė Reception Centre. These workshops gave asylum seekers a space to express themselves, share their stories, and communicate their experiences. The artists became a bridge between two worlds – our society and those whose lives often remain unseen.
Daily life in the Pabradė Centre is far from bright. Some residents are unable to leave the facility at all, living in confined conditions that deepen loneliness and psychological pressure. The artist-educators observed that many of these people suffer from insomnia or, conversely, excessive sleepiness. “Sleep has become their way of defending themselves against reality. The body and mind simply switch off, trying to cope with uncertainty and constant stress,” the artists note.
The workshops in Pabradė were conducted with great sensitivity and without pressure. Nikolaj and Olesia admit that establishing contact and building closer relationships was not easy. “We were met with suspicion. Some thought we were just another group of officials coming to check on them or control them. Our communication with them evolved constantly,” says Nikolaj.
The goal of the creative workshops was not to turn participants into artists, but rather to help them step away – even briefly – from their bleak reality. “Their situation is already difficult. Our presence should not become another burden. We have to be sensitive, flexible, and give them the chance to relax, even for a short while,” the artists explain.
The sessions also included active exercises that allowed participants to express emotions through movement when speaking was too hard. “Here, people often get lost between translations, documents, bureaucracy, and uncertainty. They are tired of words and miscommunication. The body remembers, and through it, expressing what’s inside can be easier than searching for the right language. We wanted to give them a brief respite, to help them remember simple but important things: that you can still eat ice cream, walk through grass, experience good moments – even if they are surrounded by bad ones. That they are still human – feeling, seeing, remembering.”
In one workshop, participants drew self-portraits – one side showing how the world sees them, the other showing how they see themselves. The stories revealed were deep and complex, sometimes symbolised by large eyes or currency symbols, reflecting their experiences and dreams.
The artist-educators emphasise that the most important part of these workshops was not the final product, but the process itself – those moments when people opened up, even briefly, and shared.
“Sometimes I’m afraid of my own thoughts,” one participant confessed.
“They killed my girlfriend,” another said painfully.
But there were also lighter remarks: “In Lithuania, I was surprised by the pink soup,” or “Here, I’ve begun to feel a stronger connection to nature.”
Despite their different experiences, one common denominator remains – humanity, and the desire to live a normal life. As one participant put it: “What is the future? The future is children. What is home? Home is children.” It is a sentence that could be spoken by anyone, anywhere in the world – regardless of their circumstances or nationality.
The artists seek to remind society that refugees are, first and foremost, human beings – with the same emotions, dreams, and needs as all of us. It is an attempt to give the public at least a small insight into their lives, which are far removed from our everyday reality.
Creative workshops at the Pabradė Reception Centre
In Pabradė, Artscape artists Nikolaj Urencev and Olesya Lukonina led a series of creative workshops with residents of the Pabradė Reception Centre. Over two months, participants explored artistic expression as a way to share personal experiences, feelings, and reflections. The resulting works became the foundation for the exhibition “Sometimes I feel like a dandelion in the wind that was blown into the water, I probably shouldn’t be in the water, but here I am”, presented at the Pabradė Cultural Centre.
Introducing the Educators
Urencev Nikolaj and Lukonina Olesia are an interdisciplinary artist duo based in Vilnius. Their practice unfolds between design, participatory art, performance, and art therapy. In recent years, the artists have focused primarily on working with socially vulnerable groups living in the refugee reception centers of Pabradė, Rukla, and Vilnius. The duo’s projects combine artistic expression with community engagement, creating spaces for dialogue, inclusion, and creative resilience.
Exhibition “Sometimes I feel like a dandelion in the wind that was blown into the water, I probably shouldn’t be in the water, but here I am”
“Our project Perspectives highlights stories from Europe and about Europe. They reflect today’s complex realities, told through the prism of many voices and viewpoints. This exhibition offers insights into the experiences of people living very close to one another yet – due to specific circumstances – very far from the rest of society. The process of creating the exhibition can be seen as a way of communicating with those who find themselves in difficult conditions, while the exhibition itself serves as an invitation to reflect on the vital role that stories play in our lives,” says Anna Maria Strauß, Director of the Goethe-Institut in Lithuania.
The exhibition was designed in collaboration with architect and scenographer Robert Ilgen (TAKTAK Architektūra+Scenografija). The scenography embraced the rawness and minimalism of unprocessed MDF boards and simple A4 printed pages, evoking the bureaucratic environment and the stark atmosphere of the reception centre. The spatial experience was divided into two contrasting parts – a dim, labyrinth-like corridor filled with multilingual story fragments, and a brightly lit, almost empty room displaying the artists’ tools as if they had just stepped out for a break.
“The artist duo Olesia and Nikolaj did an impressive job leading creative workshops at the Pabradė Refugee Reception Centre. They had a very clear, imagination-inspiring vision of what they wanted to convey in the exhibition and how they envisioned it spatially. It was important to them to communicate not only the atmosphere of the workshops and the emotions evoked by the centre’s sombre corridors but also the sterile office environment and bureaucratic context in which these stories emerged. This vision became our starting point – together, we searched for ways to translate these emotions and impressions into tangible spatial scenography.”
We spoke with the exhibition’s architect and scenographer, Robert Ilgen, about how space can tell stories, change perspectives, and become a form of social commentary. Find the full interview here.
“Artscape has been present at the Pabradė reception centre for ten years, and this exhibition is yet another opportunity to show solidarity with the people living there. The exhibition is unexpectedly poetic and full of light – perhaps because the artists’ message is profoundly sensitive and deeply human. We are all human beings: we are here for you, you matter, and your voice is heard,” says Aistė Ulubey, founder and director of the arts agency Artscape.
Participants’ Voices
The exhibition featured powerful quotes from the reception centre residents, such as:
“The bus left for Lithuania, and then it was all fir trees, quarantine, fir trees, quarantine, hope, fir trees, quarantine.”
“What is the future? Kids. What is home? Kids.”
“Sometimes I feel like a dandelion in the wind that was blown into the water, I probably shouldn’t be in the water, but here I am.”
These fragments offered an unfiltered insight into lives lived in waiting – between past and future, between displacement and the hope for belonging.
Special thanks
We would like to sincerely thank the social workers and staff at the Pabradė Reception Center of the Reception and Integration Agency. We are also deeply grateful to all the workshop participants – the true co-creators of this exhibition. For safety reasons, their names remain undisclosed, but their thoughts and creativity are at the heart of everything on display. Thank you for the time we shared. We truly hope that your path ahead is as smooth as possible.
The event series Voice for Change is part of the project Perspectives, co-funded by the European Union. The project is implemented by the Goethe-Institut in cooperation with the arts agency Artscape.
August 24, 2025