Biography
Kristina Kazakevičiūtė is a visual artist and art educator based in the Netherlands. Born and raised in Lithuania, she studied at the Kaunas Art Gymnasium before continuing her education at the Kaunas Faculty of the Vilnius Academy of Arts. Later, she moved to the Netherlands, where she continued her artistic and educational development at the Willem de Kooning Academy in Rotterdam. For many years, her artistic practice focused primarily on painting and drawing. Over time, her work expanded towards installation art, participatory projects and socially engaged practices. Her current interests lie in memory, storytelling, participation, cultural heritage and the relationship between people, objects and place. Alongside her artistic practice, Kristina works as an art educator in secondary education. Working between the fields of art and education has strongly influenced her approach to creating projects that encourage dialogue, reflection and active participation. Having lived in the Netherlands for more than twelve years, while maintaining a strong connection to her Lithuanian background, themes of identity, belonging, migration and collective memory continue to play an important role in her work. Her practice moves between contemporary art, art education and community-based projects, exploring how personal experiences can become part of larger shared narratives.
Artist Statement
My work stems from a fascination with memories, stories, and the ways in which people give meaning to their surroundings. I investigate how personal experiences become connected to objects, spaces, and landscapes, and how these connections become part of a collective memory.
As an artist, I am interested in what often goes unnoticed: small rituals, traces of use, encounters and memories that accumulate in daily life. These seemingly simple experiences serve as a starting point for me to reflect on identity, connection, time and place.
My work moves between installation, object, participation, and education. I do not see art solely as a final product, but as a space in which people can assign meaning, share memories, and enter into new relationships. The encounter between the artwork and the audience plays a significant role in this process.
Philosophical questions about presence, perception, and human connection form a recurring foundation within my practice. At the same time, I am interested in the social power of art: how art can connect people with one another and how individual stories can grow into shared experiences.
Whether I work with light, space, objects, or participatory projects, I am constantly looking for ways in which art can become a place for reflection, encounter, and memory. My work invites people to pause and consider what connects us and the stories that we carry with us.
Positioning as Artist & Educator
I am a visual artist and art educator whose practice moves between contemporary art, education and participatory projects. Both roles are closely connected. As an artist, I investigate memory, storytelling and human experience. As an educator, I create opportunities for others to explore, create and discover meaning through art.
Alongside my artistic practice, I teach visual arts in secondary education. Working in education has shaped the way I think about participation, ownership and learning. Every day I see how people develop through making, experimenting and reflecting. I believe that meaningful learning happens when people actively engage with ideas and connect them to their own experiences.
My artistic practice is rooted in themes of memory, identity, belonging and cultural heritage. I am interested in how personal stories become part of collective narratives and how objects, places and traditions can carry traces of human experience. These interests are influenced by my own background and by my fascination with the ways people create meaning through everyday rituals, memories and encounters.
Throughout my research into museums, community art and cultural organisations, I became increasingly interested in participatory approaches that position visitors and participants as active contributors rather than passive observers. I am inspired by projects that create opportunities for dialogue, co-creation and shared ownership. In these practices, art becomes not only something to look at, but something people actively shape together.
During my exploration of museum education, community art and inclusive cultural practices, I reflected on the role of the educator within contemporary cultural institutions. I became particularly interested in how museums and cultural organisations can create meaningful relationships with their audiences and how participation can extend beyond a single visit or workshop. I believe that cultural institutions have the potential to become spaces where people feel represented, heard and connected.
My work is driven by a desire to create encounters between people, stories and places. Whether working within a classroom, a museum or a community setting, I aim to develop projects that encourage reflection, dialogue and participation. I see art as a way of bringing people together and creating spaces where different experiences can coexist and be shared.
This vision comes together in projects such as Held for a While, a participatory project in which visitors temporarily adopt a ceramic plate and contribute their own stories, memories and experiences over the course of a year. The project reflects many of the values that shape my practice: participation, ownership, storytelling, heritage and community building. It represents my belief that art gains meaning through human interaction and that cultural experiences become more powerful when people are invited to actively contribute to them.
As an artist and educator, I am interested in collaborations with museums, cultural institutions, educational organisations and community initiatives that seek to connect people through art, participation and shared experiences. My ambition is to develop projects that not only engage audiences, but also create lasting connections between individuals, communities and cultural heritage.