Inside Stories is a Rupert pilot study commissioned by Re-Imagine Europe, intended to reveal more of our organisation’s internal processes and unseen labour to the general public. It is composed of a long-form interview series, inviting guest writers—all alumni of our programmes—to highlight members of the Rupert team.

Inside Stories will also feature staff who do not typically have a platform to share how they support the institution, such as communications, coordinators, producers, and others.

In the first article, Alternative Education Programme curator Goda Palekaitė discusses her vision for new modes of learning with Milda Dainovskytė, a former AEP participant. The second feature has AEP alumna and writerIeva Gražytė discuss with Rupert curator JL Murtaugh how Rupert’s unique model for working with artists is shifting beyond the usual definition of residency or exhibition. Finally, Rupert’s director, Viktorija Šiaulytė, looks back at the institution’s significant metamorphosis over 2024 and 2025 with recent residency programme participant Agnė Bagdžiūnaitė.

These extended articles were illustrated with images from our residents, AEP, and public programmes this year, starting in March. Inside Stories supplements our existing communications needs and helps document this criticapoint in our history, where Rupert departed our forest home of 13 years and relocated to a renovated facility in the city centre.

We aim to make Rupert’s philosophy and processes more transparent and accessible to the public, and show how our organisation has evolved in recent years to adapt to new social, political, and economic conditions. This pilot also shows the variety and scope of Rupert’s activities, including the international residency programme, alternative education programme, and our public programme.

This project was originally intended to be a running feature on Rupert’s own website. However, we were lucky that all three interviews were published both there and with third-party online publishers in both English and Lithuanian.

As a result of the success of this pilot, we plan to continue the series into 2026, featuring more of the people behind Rupert, and potentially offering updated conversations with the team as our organisation continues to evolve.

Context

This text is one of the pilot studies of Re-Imagine Europe: New Perspectives for Action. In these contributions we explore and reflect on artistic practices and experimental approaches in the cultural field that can engage and activate audiences and communities to address ecological, social, and political challenges. The pilot studies provide an overview of practices of cultural organisations that can serve as models, recipes, or tools for transformation for current and future generations of cultural workers and artists.

Read the pilot study directly on our website or download the PDF to save for later.