CA Stories

Featured people: Jekaterina Lavrinec

Jekaterina Lavrinec, a Vilnius-based curator of community art initiatives, researcher and educator in the fields of media and urban studies, was selected to participate to the Idea Camp 2014 with her idea using urban furniture to give residents the tools to (re)think about their use of public space. Her idea, Open Code Urban Furniture: Co-Design Workshops,* has been awarded an R&D grant. 
Photo by Kamera.

 “[Open Code Urban Furniture] is a tool for studying, researching and finding out how people domesticate public spaces in their communities.

Jekaterina has co-founded an interdisciplinary platform for urban research, community art, non-formal learning and activism called Laimikis.lt (NGO), which cooperates with Radarq and European Alternatives in studying the role of urban furniture in developing public spaces.Open Code Urban Furniture offers the tools for residents to play with the possible usages of public space in their local neighbourhoods. The design of the furniture has been inspired by the Tetris game, which invites participants through playful interaction to become active makers in their neighbourhood.

In the past few months, a series of co-design workshops took place in four Vilnius neighbourhoods: Antakalnis, Šnipiškės, Lazdynai, šv. Stepono str., where residents were invited to create unique configurations of urban furniture arranged in public spaces, using Open Code Urban Furniture. The preferences of the residents of each neighbourhood allowed to map the level of trust and safety in each of participating neighbourhood.

Watch this short video (produced by Kamera) featuring Jekaterina and presenting you the various aspects of Open Code Urban Furniture:

Jekaterina Lavrinec is also an Associate Professor at Vilnius Gediminas Technical University, where she teaches courses in urban studies and creative communication in public space and runs workshops in participatory/social design. In her practice, she implements participatory art-based research approaches. Her interests embrace urban networks, regeneration and the usability of public spaces.

For further information about Open Code Urban Furniture visit laimikis.lt

*At the time of the application, the original name of the idea was “Street Komoda Workshops: Co-Designing the Urban Furniture for Sharing”.

I am a freelance writer, literary translator, editor and curator based in Amsterdam. I work internationally on a variety of literary and cultural projects. My primary interest is in challenging official narratives and advocating freedom of expression through different creative processes, using various media, online and offline. I have worked with cultural organisations and have participated in residencies: as translator-in- residence at the Free Word Centre in London (2013); as a cultural journalist at WAAW in Senegal (2015); and most recently at Copenhagen University to work on my project City in Translation, looking at stories behind the multilingual expressions throughout cities. I work closely with ECF on curating their online presence, including website, eZine and social media, as well as with MitOSt in Berlin on the Tandem Cultural Exchange programme and as literature curator with Europalia International Arts Festival in Brussels. More on: cananmarasligil.net

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