Exhibition “Master and Apprentice” by the VDA opens in Vienna

2026 02 20 - 2026 03 28

On February 19th, 2026, the exhibition “Master and Apprentice” by the Vilnius Academy of Arts opened at the Designforum Wien gallery in Vienna. The exhibition presents 15 contemporary design works, ranging from historical posters and furniture to fashion pieces. Participants were welcomed by the Ambassador of the Republic of Lithuania in Austria, Lina Rukštelienė.

The exhibition examines Lithuanian design as a long-term, multilayered process shaped by relationships, mentorship, and epicenter of experience. Designers of different generations, disciplines, and professional backgrounds come together, revealing a dialogue between academia and professional practice. The focus shifts from the final result to the broader narrative of design, to the often invisible structures of collaboration that shape creative practice and professional identity.

One of the curators, Audronė Drungilaitė-Čepienė, notes:
“I am delighted by the long-standing friendship with one of the oldest design organizations, Design Austria Forum. The opportunity to present Lithuanian design in the prestigious MuseumsQuartier Wien is truly a celebration for the entire academic design community. I hope this exhibition will become a platform for fostering new connections between Lithuania and Austria.”

By presenting the works of designers, the exhibition proposes a broader understanding of Lithuanian design as a living and evolving phenomenon. It reconsiders the concept of mastery in a contemporary context, emphasizing not individual talent but relationships, community, and shared experience. Design is approached as a collective practice in which the transmission of knowledge and values shapes not only individual creators but the wider Lithuanian design field.

The exhibition materializes these ideas through objects, fashion, furniture, and lighting that explore the relationships between body, material, craft, and environment. The works highlight intuition, sensory experience, and creation as an ongoing process rather than a fixed result. Materials and techniques are interpreted through contemporary and speculative methods, creating a dialogue between nature and technology. The exhibited works embody design as a relational and constantly evolving practice in which cultural memory is continually reinterpreted through shared experience and contemporary practice of living and making.

The exhibition architecture, designed by Vytautas Gečas, employs stainless steel panels that emphasize duality and flexibility, symbolizing connections between generations, periods, and materials. Metal elements are combined with subtle graphic design interventions by Swiss designers Joana Siniavskaja and Nina Flaitz.

The exhibition is funded by the Vilnius Academy of Arts in cooperation with Design Austria, supported by the Austrian copyright collecting agency Bildrecht and the Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport of Austria.

The exhibition will run until March 28th, 2026.

Venue:
Designforum Wien
Museumsplatz 1 / Hof 7
1070 Vienna, Austria

Organizers: Vilnius Academy of Arts and Designforum Wien
Partners and sponsors: Design Austria, Bildrecht, Federal Ministry for Arts, Culture, the Civil Service and Sport
Curators: Audronė Drungilaitė-Čepienė, Daina Eičaitė
Exhibition Architect: Vytautas Gečas
Graphic Designers: Joana Siniavskaja, Nina Flaitz

Opening Hours:
Tuesday–Friday: 10:00–18:00
Saturday: 14:00–18:00
Sunday–Monday: Closed

Participants

Tadas Baginskas
Chair for the Gintaras Hotel

This chair was designed for the Gintaras Hotel (now the renovated Panorama Hotel, architect Stasys Bareikis), located near the Vilnius Railway Station. Although originally created for the hotel restaurant, the chair proved suitable for broader use. In 1965, the Šiauliai Furniture Factory, which specialized in chair production, began mass-producing Baginskas’ design. Due to the curved shape of its backrest, the chair earned the nickname “Humpback.”

Aronas Balčiūnas
"Kėdė" (Chair)

This chair emerged from observing industrial environments - functional, temporary structures that are part of everyday life yet often go unnoticed. Its slender metal frame reflects industrial rhythm, repetition, and order, while a found fragment of granite introduces a contrasting element: raw, heavy, and accidental. The dialogue between these components creates a tension between control and chaos, human-made systems and natural material. Rather than imitating nature, the object reflects on its place within an industrial structure, leaving both materials and construction openly expressed.

Dainius Bendikas
"Dizaino tyrimas - Afekto ekosistemos dizaino intervencijose" (Design Research - Ecosystems of Affect in Design Interventions)

This research explores human interaction with wearable interactive objects - neurosomatic artefacts that connect internal bodily states with the external environment, employing wind as a co-creative agent. Through embodied cognition and affective design, the project develops meditative interventions that foster an ecological relationship between humans and the natural world, while reinterpreting and deepening the sensory connection with it.

Pijus Burakas
Posters “Jūratė,” “Piano Days Copenhagen,” “Слава Україні! Героям слава!”

The selected series of posters reflects Burakas’ distinctive creative style - direct and minimalist, often grounded in metaphors that precisely convey the core idea of each work. The posters were created for music events and for a political movement supporting Ukraine in the war against Russia.

Pijus Dulskis
“Findings of Silence”

“Findings of Silence” approaches fashion design as a space for continuous reflection, intuition, and discovery. Responding to the accelerated pace of the fashion industry, the project proposes a practice-based, non-linear creative process grounded in ongoing experimentation rather than a predetermined outcome. Silence functions as a metaphor for withdrawing from trends and industrial noise, creating space for deeper exploration.

Drawing on the tools of fashion design, the project interprets Leela - an ancient game of self-reflection - translating inner human states into form, materiality, and function. The progression from symbolic, intuitive impulses to functional objects enables authentic research and discovery, fostering a meaningful and lasting relationship with fashion design.

Juozas Galkus
Posters “Fugue of Water and Wind,” “Chamber Orchestra,” and “Lithuanian Chamber Orchestra”

In the 1960s and early 1970s, Juozas Galkus created numerous posters dedicated to music. His works proved particularly suited to Op Art aesthetics, which he interpreted in a distinctly painterly manner.

Emilija Globytė
Screen “Revealing”

The screen explores intimacy within the design process. Here, design is understood as an interaction between a pre-conceived object and its intuitively shaped form. Seeking a sense of closeness in the act of making, the designer emphasizes transitional states that acquire tangible expression.

The screen reflects one mode of developing intimacy - “searching alongside.” Its frame is formed by bending tubes, with only the proportions of the three sections predetermined. The mesh is created through the designer’s “thinking hands,” allowing layers to emerge organically in the process, as the hands become an extension of thought. The tactile qualities of the mesh foster an intimate relationship, generating a sense of closeness through exploration.

Liepa Marija Gradauskaitė
Ray Lamp

Ray is a woven sculptural lamp made from willow branches grown in Lithuania. Its woven forms are designed according to a modular principle, allowing different variations of the object by rearranging its parts. The object bears a special marking indicating both the designer and the master craftsperson who wove it. By opening new formal and typological possibilities, the project seeks to reactivate this increasingly forgotten craft for the contemporary user.

Rimvydas Kepežinskas
Posters for the Birštonas Jazz Festival

Posters for the Birštonas Jazz Festival have been created since 1982, continuing an authorial practice begun in 1978. The works are characterized by musical rhythm, metaphor, and a clear visual structure. The series was shaped within the pedagogical context of Professor Juozas Galkus and influenced by Polish and Japanese poster schools. Presented at international biennials, the series laid the foundation for a long-term collaboration with the festival.

Mantas Lesauskas
Candle Holder

This arch-shaped candle holder with sea-washed amber fragments is part of the Peripheria x Cor collection, which explores materials of the Baltic region and their contemporary cultural potential. The object examines amber as a material shaped by environment and time, where natural processes intersect with ritual function.

Mantas Lesauskas
Bread Stand / Amber Dust Incense Burner

Also part of the Peripheria x Cor collection, this object connects practices of food, scent, and materiality. It examines ritualized forms of everyday life in which bread, incense, and amber function as activators of cultural identity and collective memory.

Inesa Malafej-Sukarevičienė and Arūnas Sukarevičius
Armchair “Naïve Low”

The armchair “Naïve Low” combines simplicity with durability. Its solid ash construction can be easily disassembled and packed into a compact box for transport. The main visual accent is a wide leather strap supporting the backrest. Despite its compact size, the carefully considered proportions ensure comfortable seating.

Michael McCready
Lighting Object “From the Ground Up”

This object reflects a future in which the world of construction continues to expand, gradually overshadowing what was once considered natural landscape. Drawing on the language of construction and infrastructure, its form references foundations, pipelines, and engineered connections that increasingly shape our surroundings.

Softened and slowed down, these industrial elements begin to imitate processes of growth, erosion, and flow. The work proposes a world in which technology and structures may replace organic nature, inviting reflection on how our understanding of “nature” might change as human-made systems become our dominant environment.

Vesta Rugilė Nausėdaitė
Lamp “Epiphanies”

Epiphanies is a lighting collection developed through autoethnographic research grounded in the designer’s childhood experiences and family creative heritage. The table lamp explores personal and cultural memory, reflecting on the value of objects through family narratives, inherited textiles, and visits to sites of remembrance.

These experiences materialize as epiphanies in the object’s form, material, and production process. Childhood beaches serve not only as inspiration but also as an experimental site — sand is used in glass-forming and material exploration. The structure of the lamp references traditional Lithuanian towel racks historically used to honor significant textiles, transforming light into a connector of personal and cultural memory.

Marija Puipaitė
Unupholstered Bench

This piece is a reflection on traditional upholstery craftsmanship. Engineering precision meets physical force - straps are tensioned, springs tied and restrained, layers interconnected - and the exposed structure reveals this living organism that shapes form, provides comfort, and ensures durability.

The flowing curves of the “nude” form suggest a personal invitation to sit, flirt with historicism and folk craftsmanship. Its three-legged design was determined by three old oak planks discovered in a shed, holding sentimental value for the designer.

Virgilijus Šlipaitis
Lidded Basket Chest

The lidded basket chest is a traditional rectangular storage form used as a lighter alternative to large trunks. Both the frame and weaving are made from willow grown in Lithuania. The object is decorated with patterns of unpeeled, undyed willow and linen cord.

The chest is considered a symbol of high craftsmanship - weaving rectangular forms is significantly more complex than round ones, requiring many years of experience and exceptional precision.