Thematic guided tours of the exhibition “Lithuania. Two centuries of photography”

We invited you to a series of thematic guided tours in Polish.

September 12, 16:00

Theme: “Challenges of memory”

Guide: Joanna Majewska-Grabowska

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

Lithuanians, like other European nations, face the challenge of understanding and telling their difficult history of the 20th century. Aspirations for independence, two world wars that led to a change of borders, the communist regime and, finally, personal and generational traumas. These are complicated, difficult, and often painful topics.

How to talk about them and discuss them? How and whether to judge them? During the tour, we will talk about how Lithuanians try to answer these questions with the help of photography (and not only!).

September 13, 16:00

Theme: “Jerusalem of the North”

Guide: Marcin Krotla

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

Vilnius is a unique place for Jewish history and culture, which for a good reason was also called the “Jerusalem of the North” or “Lithuanian Jerusalem”. According to one of the legends, the author of this term was supposedly Napoleon, who after entering the city was amazed by the large number of synagogues and people praying in them.

During the tour we will look at the Jewish community of Vilnius – its history as well as places and buildings that are important to it. We will also talk about its impact on Jewish and Lithuanian culture.

September 14, 16:00

Theme: “Nature – mutual relations”

Guide: Joanna Majewska-Grabowska

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

Nature – the silent protagonist of landscape photography of the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, an object of inventory, an intermediary in returning to the roots, a pretext for magical stories, inspiration for contemporary art.

During the tour we will talk about the role of nature in Lithuanian culture. What is its function in telling stories of the past? What is the attitude of Lithuanians to nature today?

September 15, 16:00

Theme: Treasure box

Guide: Marcin Krotla

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

For centuries, various influences from the East and the West have mixed and clashed in the capital of Lithuania. This is very distinct in the city’s diverse and multicultural architecture, which – like a jewellery box – is full of precious jewels from different parts of the world perfectly representing each successive era.

During the tour, we will “walk” through the photographs of the city and look at the gems of Vilnius architecture.

September 19, 16:00

Theme: “The city and the country”

Guide: Joanna Majewska-Grabowska

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

We usually do not have enough time to visit the Lithuanian countryside in our travels. All attention is focused on Vilnius – a city-legend, a city-myth. The photographs presented at the exhibition show the perpetual opposition between the city and the countryside: different architecture, clothes, activities, and entertainment. The difference lasts in time, preserved in photos and in real space, because the Lithuanian countryside has preserved many of its old traditions and landscapes.

During the tour, we will talk about the relationship between the city and the countryside, looking for that which has survived from the old days, but also about how urban and rural life have changed over the years.

September 20, 16:00

Theme: “Photographers”

Guide: Beata Wolszczak

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

Three photographers who became famous for picturing their homeland – Lithuania. One considered photography a source of income. The second – a favourite hobby. The third practiced photography as an art form.

Józef Czechowicz (1818-1888) was a pioneer of the art of photography. Stanisław Kazimierz Kossakowski (1837-1905) was a landowner who created a well-equipped atelier in his estate in Wojtuszki. Jan Bułhak (1879-1950) was a professional photographer; he was not only a practitioner, but also a philosopher and theoretician, the author of the term “fotografika”. Perhaps they never met, perhaps they inspired each other. They shared the same passion.

September 21, 16:00

Theme: “Kupala Night in Lithuania is a party until daybreak”

Guide: Beata Wolszczak

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

Kupala Night, which falls on June 24, is a holiday in Lithuania. It is a Christian commemoration of the nativity of St. John the Baptist and at the same time a day of Slavic solstice celebrations. Pre-Christian rituals survived not only in the tradition of Midsummer Night, but also in the Lithuanian landscape, legends, and customs. Pagan identity is also cultivated by contemporary Baltic religious communities.

September 22, 16:00

Theme: “Miško Broliai – Forest Brothers”

Guide: Beata Wolszczak

Duration: 60 minutes
No booking required 

As a result of the famous Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact, signed in Moscow on August 23, 1939, the territory of Lithuania was occupied by the USSR in 1940. Intense political repressions and deportations of civilians began. Four years later, when the Red Army was entering Lithuania again, the Lithuanians decided to fight for independence. The partisan war, called the “war after the war”, lasted until 1953. About 50,000 people fought in the anti-communist underground. This story is still alive in many Lithuanian families.