The festive week, as it should, will end with a celebration – prayer, meeting, and a gift to the church. This year, festival participants, together with textile artist Žydrė Ridulytė and local women, will create felt slippers – a small but very practical reminder that the cold season is approaching.
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One of the most beautiful coincidences this year is that sculptor and writer Mykolas Sauka is coming to “Mykolo tiltai” and Mykolinės, who will look for a place and idea for a new sculpture in Žemaičių Naumiestis.
This is a week that creates bridges between people, creativity, and memory, where the work of professional artists merges with the creative potential of the local community, and unused town buildings are transformed into exhibition, concert, and rehearsal halls, creative workshops, gatherings, and social spaces.
The festival invites you to get involved, try, meet, and create. Because a creative town starts with a creative person, where the boldest ideas are born and realized.
The town’s lionization
Žemaičių Naumiestis is an old town on the border of Samogitia, long an important area on the border between Lithuania and East Prussia. Its history is still reminded by the town’s unique coat of arms – a golden lion holding a red flint pistol in its teeth.
This coat of arms symbol has become a playful sign of the town’s identity – Žemaičių Naumiestis has begun to be lionized. The first street art piece appeared on the cultural center building, and playful little lions can be found around the town and the former manor grounds, which can be discovered with the help of a “lion” map already prepared for print. Even the bus stop in the town center has become a work of art – the bus there is driven by none other than a lion.
In the former barracks – not weapons, but art
The festival’s idea is to turn history into living material for contemporary creativity, so spaces that have long been unused are opened and activated. One of them is the former interwar barracks on Ramybės Street, a unique building shaped like the Columns of Gediminas, recalling the history of the interwar Lithuanian army. It housed the headquarters of the Seventh Infantry Regiment of the Samogitian Duke Butegeidis and one battalion. After the war, the building was used as a vocational technical school, later a secondary school.
On the first day of the festival, animation director Ilja Bereznickas will create an animated film about Žemaičių Naumiestis together with local youth. Felt workshops will also begin here.
On the evening of September 25, a one-day choir will gather. Everyone is invited – both to sing and simply to listen.
In the place where commands and weapons once sounded, art now reigns.
A bridge to Latvia
This year’s festival also introduces another bridge – to Latvia. On September 22, the Day of Baltic Unity, interior designer Laura Lėja Abrams, who moved to Žemaičių Naumiestis last year, will lead creative workshops. She will invite participants to create a shared creative bridge between people, connecting different experiences and the Baltic cultural space.
We will present the work of photographer Aigars Ziemelis and the recovering addicts’ community “Kalno palaiminimų bendruomenė” (“Kalna svētību kopienā”), founded by Roman Catholic priest Andrejs Mediņš. This is a unique community where people recovering from addiction create, work, and revive spaces for new life – abandoned places turn into blooming gardens and lively homes. Thanks to the community’s efforts, Brukna and Kurmenė manors, Kankalė church, Barblė school, Skaistkalne monastery, and church have been revived.
Next to Brukna manor stands a unique chapel – a replica of the 10th-century Karsos Cathedral, built by the community members themselves. The festival “Mykolo tiltai” project manager, local director Dalia Cibauskaitė–Dali Rust, has been organizing exhibitions of Lithuanian artists in the winter garden of Brukna chapel for six years.
Currently, the exhibition “Dialogues” by artist Romas Klimavičius and writer, psychotherapist, and poetry therapist Jūratė Sučylaitė is on display in Brukna. On September 24, on the occasion of European Heritage Days, another exhibition specially created for the town by Romas Klimavičius will open at the Žemaičių Naumiestis Cultural Center.
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The former synagogue – history returns
September 23 is the Day of Remembrance of the Genocide of Lithuanian Jews. On this day, the doors of the former Žemaičių Naumiestis synagogue will be opened. On September 23 and 24, this space will be accessible to visitors.
The former synagogue is not just a building. It is a reminder of a community that was an integral part of the town’s life and no longer exists today. The Jewish community in Žemaičių Naumiestis was very large – in 1897, out of 2445 town residents, 1438 were Jews.
The settlement is located at the confluence of three streams, so water also becomes an important part of the town’s memory and landscape. This theme begins to be told at the festival through the exhibition “In the Flow of Rivers” by photographer Neringa Arnašiūtė, who comes from the surroundings of Žemaičių Naumiestis, which will take place next to and inside the former synagogue.
European Heritage Day and South Africa
September 24 will be dedicated to heritage and another important bridge – between Žemaičių Naumiestis and the Republic of South Africa. This day coincides with a national holiday in South Africa – Heritage Day.
The festival will welcome former Lithuanian ambassador to South Africa, photography historian Dainius Junevičius, who will give a lecture titled “The Success Story of Samuel Marks (Sammy Marks), a Businessman and Public Figure from Žemaičių Naumiestis.” His story shows how the life path of a person from a small town in Samogitia can leave an important mark in the history of another continent.
The Heritage Day will be crowned by the charming “Rakija Klezmer Band” guys – musicians bringing klezmer music rhythms to Žemaičių Naumiestis.
Artistic bus and ideas for next year
On Friday, September 25, arriving artists, communities, guests from elderships and the municipality will board a symbolic weather vane – a bus painted by the well-known street artist Pijus Čeikauskas (Pidžin), who grew up in Žemaičių Naumiestis, “donated” by the Šilutė bus park.
With this Artistic bus, we will travel to meet people who create, act, and contribute with their ideas and initiatives to a more creative Šilutė district.
The festival will also include lecturers from the Architecture Department of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Their visit is an opportunity to look at Žemaičių Naumiestis as a creative place-making laboratory: next year, Academy students will create future visions for unused buildings and public spaces in the town.
The festival becomes not only a week-long event but also a process whose results remain in the town after it ends.
Organizers: The main organizer of the festival is the Šilutė Cultural Center together with the Žemaičių Naumiestis branch, the Žemaičių Naumiestis community, and the eldership. The festival is funded by the Lithuanian Council for Culture and the Šilutė district municipality, with contributions from local and district people, institutions, and organizations.
When: September 21–27 (main program September 21–25, Mykolinės – 26, celebration – 27) Where: Žemaičių Naumiestis, Šilutė district. Full program
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