“MANIFESTO OF THE PEOPLE‘S MUSEUM”

This collective manifesto initiates a talk about a NEW MUSEUM – a museum that would preserve the memory of Lithuanian industry and tell the stories of work and life of industrial communities, a museum that would unite various generations of people, and a museum that will involve in the discussion on the future of democracy.

The idea of the Manifesto of People's Museum grew out of the exhibition series "The Great Industry" organised by the community platform "Backup Stories", which has been running since 2017. The exhibitions were directed towards moving the memory of industry out of the margins of history, returning the testimonies and cultural viewpoints of industrial communitoes back on the map of collective memory, and becoming a megaphone for people's ideas.

The manifesto of the People's Museum accumulates answers of former industrial workers and the younger generation of researchers and activists to two questions: why the memory of industry needs to be preserved, and how it should be done. The manifesto's ideas were written down on 10 February 2023 at the Kaunas Picture Gallery during the "Gathering of the Great Industry", on 1 May 2023 at the Kaunas Artists' House and on 16 June 2023 at the conference "Culture and Emancipation" at the National Gallery of Art in Vilnius.

The exhibition features not only a spatial manifesto of the texts, but also some of the cornerstones of the future museum, preserved at the M. K. Čiurlionis National Museum of Art and Vytautas the Great War Museum, as well as in the wardrobes of Lithuanian people: from the gold-glittering pre-war sculpture "The Personification of Industry" by Bronius Pundzius to the "Coat of Freedom" manufactured at the Vilnius Fashion House in February 1990; from the impressive stained-glass window "Students at Practice" by Stasys Ušinskas to the contemporary home-made posters of the First of May strikes organised by the Trade Union.

In Europe, museums dedicated to the history of industrial society and democracy have been around for more than 50 years and are called labour museums. Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and our nearest neighbours, Poland and Estonia, show excellent examples. In Lithuania, however, the history of industry is associated with unpleasant memories – the peak of industrialisation coincided with the Soviet occupation, and wild privatisation was not an embelishment of the country‘s independence. The associated memories have been disowned and removed leaving a gap in common understanding.

We invite you to support the idea of the People's Museum that would fill this gap. Create the museum by adding your own sentences to the manifesto – you are welcome to write down your sentences at the exhibition until 11 February.

Curator of the exhibition – Auksė Petrulienė
Cooperators – the communities of “Drobė“, “Inkaras”, Kaunas Paper Factory and Kaunas Radio Plant
Graphic design – Julija Tolvaišytė-Leonavičienė

The event is open to the public and will be filmed and photographed. By attending the event you agree to be featured in photographs and videos of the event and are informed that these photographs and videos may be made public.