The initiative Culture Jam is aiming to merge the boundaries between different cultures through arts and collaboration. It is aimed that integration would not be a compromise between different communities but rather a result achieved through collaboration, shared knowledge and skills.
The idea of Culture Jam is to work with national artists and local creative communities to break the barriers and encourage Lithuanian’s integration through arts. This would obviously be achieved by inviting professional UK artists for collaboration, involving people from creative businesses to engage in planning and management process of the initiative.
A group of creatives cruising through the streets, warehouses, universities, offices and different spaces of Birmingham. Majority of us are Lithuanians, but we mix and mingle with other friends from the UK, South Africa, Norway, Kenya etc.
We are the ones who ARE BOTHERED about what’s happening around us, we are interested in what’s happening in other cultures and arts. Our worst enemy is nine to five, we prefere 24/7.
Acting instead of Waiting!
If you care – come and join us! If your life is more than sandwiches and football - tell us What You Think.
Main action people:
 Agnė Selemonaitė |
 Gintas Jokubauskas |
 Waylind Bester |
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 Marius Bogdanas |
 Andrius Pekarskas |
 Gyte Mankute |
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 Živilė Maldeikytė |
 Lina Bivainytė |
Asta Vibrytė |
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JKLJS Birmingham
JKLJS Birmingham is an organisation uniting young Lithuanian people in Birmingham and West Midlands. It was set as a separate branch for JKLJS London, when it was noticed more young Lithuanians were coming to UK and spreading across the country, especially West Midlands region. Organisations’ main agenda is to always look for innovative ways to engage young people and challenge their integration through number of creative projects. Young generation of immigrants is much more flexible than the previous, it does not experience that much of a language barrier and is pulsing with creativity and energy. Organisation is aiming to inform and show the ways and possibilities, where they could express themselves and indulge with local communities.
Out of 300.000 Lithuanians living in UK, it is known that there are at least 3000 of them living in West Midlands region, 500 of which are young studying or working people. Each autumn the number is rising as there are more people coming to study in Birmingham, Walsall, Wolverhampton, Warwick and Coventry. As previously, the most popular study area were business and management, however recently it has started to shift to creative studies, such as architecture, interior design, visual communication, photo and video and so on.
At the moment organisation has around 10 active members who are usually involved in planning, project management and implementation, and there are nearly 150 who are regularly coming to larger events or otherwise contributing to the community. There are constantly more people joining the organisation after each event, for example after first Culture Jam we had 40 new members and after Olympiad’s event – new 30 people. So far JKLJS Birmingham has only organised few events:
- December 2007 Culture Jam
- August 2008 Olympiad Basketball review
- September 2008 Guerrilla Lighting with BCC
- October 2008 Lithuanian Parliament elections – part of ‘Future Lithuania’ project
- October 2008 Launch of academic year
- November 2008 Culture Jam 2
- January 2009 National Dictation Competition
- February 2009 Independence Day Celebration
+ numerous informal meetings, basketball matches etc.
Forthcoming:
- May 2009 I’m the President
- June 2009 Closing of academic year
- June 2009 Midsummer Festival in Worcester
- July 2009 European Capital of Culture in Vilnius
- November-December 2009 Culture Jam vol. 3
The organisation is constantly updating the list of partners that it is working with. Previous included Lithuanian Embassy, Arts Council England, local private businesses (Sports Café, Lituanica), Lithuanian Birmingham Community, Midlands Lithuanian Community, JKLJS London, and others.
If you want to join or contribute, please contact us
To become a member, please download the application form and email us.