“A tiny meadow, homestead foundations entangled with hops, a road hardly passable for a motor vehicle leading towards them. And everything so very cosy. That was the first impression of the place I had found for Europos Parkas. I wanted to be there, I felt a good aura all around me, the feeling is still there.”  –  so it is written about the beginning of the park.

The exhibition “Europos Parkas: From a Dream to the Present” 

Europos Parkas invites visitors of the museum to come to see an unusual exhibition. Why is it unusual? It is because the stands of the exposition are situated not in a hall but right in the open air. The exhibition “Europos Parkas: From a Dream to the Present” presents the main principles of creation of Europos Parkas or, as the creator of the museum Gintaras Karosas says, it is a collection of answers to frequently asked questions.

The principle of the open air exhibition corresponds to the general idea of the open air museum: here grass means the floor, trees become walls of the exposition halls, and the sky serves as the ceiling. The exhibition reveals the way from the concept of the museum to its implementation, it brings the spectator emotionally and intellectually closer to the exhibited works of art.

Various aspects of the creative process are told the spectator in the form of an essay.

“Sometimes ideas look so big and frightening that you are afraid to go after them. When lines on a sheet of paper start to appear true and reappear in the same way all over again, when the concept of sense becomes ripe in the subconscious, you begin. So, from the shape you find, over desperation and trial, designing moulds, setting up hundreds of supports, designing, despairing and trying again, sometimes after many years the idea becomes body. What the realisation of an idea is impossible without is faith, will and consistency while creating.”

There are twenty pages of a huge book with text and photographs, each designed for a certain topic: “Art”, Black Sheep”, “The Miracle”, “Friendly architecture”, “People”: “People may say they do not dig art and that is OK, one can understand it in their own way – that is good, or even disparage art – that is also OK, after all, that is the reaction that the art itself brings. Regardless of people’s views on art, without them creative work per se has no meaning as it affects the man to change. I hope, for the good.”

“The open air museum changes with time. Everyone can notice this visiting the museum in different seasons”, Gintaras Karosas says and writes on a page of the huge book: “It is never the same, just like life itself. Engulfed in mists in the morning, casting aside its veil of mystery and cosy during the day, full of shadows at play in the afternoon and most focused just before the nightfall. Always different, and it takes time to get to know it – many years of being together, living in it. A different choral of birds at different times of the day, before or after the rain, not to mention the changing seasons. After all, nature is perfect. A part of it mixed with the man’s creative work looks slightly similar to the stretch of living that we use to mark our earthly existence with.”

The project is partly financed by Lithuanian Cultural Fund.

The Publication "Europos Parkas 2009: From a Dream to the Present“, I part

The Publication "Europos Parkas 2009: From a Dream to the Present“, II part