Arnoldas Stramskas

 

Arnoldas Stramkas works in the Žemieji Šančiai district of Kaunas. The district has a rich history as a military, industrial and residential area, which has experienced major transformations since the fall of the Soviet Union. These transformations, however, have not taken into consideration public space needs or community organizing principles. In this context, together with a larger team, he addresses these issues through various interventions and relationship building. One of the initiatives that he co-organizes is an experiment in public space called Kiosk. In 2013 Kiosk created an improvised ‘joint-stock company’ and asked people to become shareholders of the Kiosk. At the moment, its surroundings serve as an open space, with regular flea markets, bicycle workshops, live music events and so on. The group is also starting to work on an abandoned and problematic territory with the vision of developing it into a public site to serve community needs.

Besides spending time on community work, Arnoldas is also a PhD student in contemporary political philosophy with an emphasis on micropolitics and minor spaces.

Organization: ´VšĮ Penki, keturi plius´, Lithuania

Through this project, I want to create a series of organized encounters between younger and older people who come together to develop new skills and contribute, ideally, to the expansion of usable public spaces in the district of Žemieji Šančiai in Kaunas. The district has a rich history as a military, industrial and residential area, which has experienced major transformations since the fall of the Soviet Union. These transformations, however, have not taken into consideration public space needs or community organizing principles. In this context, together with a larger team, I work to address these issues through various interventions and relationship building.

Since there are a lot of generally older people with extensive technical expertise, I would like to find ways to encourage them to share that knowledge with children and younger people, who may not have these skills. I also aim to make that knowledge more public, show younger people opportunities for using their time in productive ways, provide an example of how local knowledge within the district could be tapped and directly or indirectly contribute to strengthening of district’s identity as skilful, solution oriented, self-sufficient and creative.