Sigita Simona
landscape architect
exhibition designer
researcher
teacher assistant
sigita.simona@gmail.com
My practice is all about observation, analysis, and response to the questions that are rooted at a local scale but affect larger social, urban, and ecological issues. Through research, experiments, and permanent projects, I try to learn new ways to collaborate, create new knowledge, and build healthy places that respect their environment.
FABIJONO SVETAINE
2022
urban furniture, landscape architecture
Contemporary cities face unprecedented pressure to rethink the ways they operate, especially those that have a large percentage of the Soviet-style building stock lacking public amenities that would draw community members together. Fabian’s Living Room, a new sculptural outdoor space located in one of the sleeping districts of Vilnius creates a new welcoming and sustainable social context for neighbourhood meetings around the public grills and other urban furniture made out of reused stone.
After our project team spotted a disused sporting lot near the residential houses on Stanevicius street in Fabijoniskes, we learned that it was never used and that there are no plans for the City to repurpose it. Several discussions with the local authorities and the inhabitants led to choosing this location to make it environmentally and community friendly for everybody. The context of the pandemic shed new light on the project since qualitative outdoor spaces became key to our physical and mental well-being.
A new outdoor space, Fabian’s Living Room, suggests alternative means to gather around the fire and food-making culture - the daily components linked to well-being and care.
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To strengthen the local community of Fabijoniskes and build new cultural bridges, we organized an urban photography workshop connecting around 60 local teenagers from Lithuanian-speaking and Russian-speaking schools. This one-month workshop, led by photographer Andrej Vasilenko, resulted in an outdoor exhibition, accompanied by an vernissage event, and lasted throughout the summer inviting residents to see their living environment, its identity, and qualities through the artistic eyes of local schoolchildren.
Project team - Sigita Simona Paplauskaitė, Justė Kostikovaitė, Bert Jacobs, Daumantas Kučas
Graphic design - Rokas Sutkaitis
Photography - Vilnius Municipality, Lukas Mykolaitis
Performing artists - Indrė Jurgelevičiūtė, Jolita Pabludo, Dave Says
Thanks to -
Vilnius Municipality, Lithuanian council for culture, Smoke dudes, Kuro aparatura