As the year draws to a close, there is a longing for light – not only the one quite successfully mimicked by the festive lights, but also the invisible light that reminds us that things can get better. Perhaps that’s why we try to dedicate our last issue each year to more hopeful themes. We have already looked into charities and benefactors, games, and festive traditions.
Childhood seems to be the lightest topic and the best period of all. We remember with nostalgia the time when the biggest problem was doing homework. When responsibilities were few and opportunities to explore, discover, surprise, and choose were many. One’s relationship with culture is also determined in childhood – although, of course, we are open to those who made their discoveries later in life.
In December, we invite you to take a look at how culture welcomes the younger generation in Kaunas. We walked around galleries and museums with Ugne Marija, the mother of a son and a daughter, read theatre scholar Miglė Munderzbakaitė’s insights into the repertoire of performing arts institutions for children, and interviewed Auksė Petrulienė, curator of the new exhibition called Pasaka. We also knocked on the door of Herojus School open to Ukrainian children, called Kaunas libraries to inquire about the special activities they offer for parents and children, took a walk around award-winning film director Saulė Bliuvaitė’s native Vilijampolė and… are all looking forward to the opening of the Science Island, which has already become the most instagrammable building in Kaunas.
We can only be glad that we have the opportunity to experience all these things and be thankful for it. Like every year, the project Vaikų svajonės (Children’s Dreams) invites everyone to send Christmas greetings to children across Lithuania. During the festive season, the Ninth Fort Museum in Kaunas hosts the deeply touching exhibition Children…, dedicated to remembering the Ukrainian children who lost their lives during the war. Books can also help us understand the roots of the endless troubles of our illusion-ridden modern society. This December, our editorial team is reading Dr. Ieva Balčiūnė’s Augintiniai (Fosterlings), a work about… the abandonment of children in Soviet-occupied Lithuania (published by Aukso žuvys, available at Kolibris). Because we must not forget.
