8 January 2019

15 January – 15 March: exhibition “Meeting Minds. NYLA portraits”

“Journalism, like no other profession, is special in the way it allows you to meet another person. A microphone changes the atmosphere between two strangers. They start talking,” said the organizers of the exhibition, the Nanook team of media professionals creating new-generation Lithuanian journalism.  They invite everyone interested in the socio-political situation and communication to visit the Exhibition Hall of the Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania.

In September 2017, Nanook launched NYLA, the first professional podcast in Lithuania. Its audience can get to know people whose stories shed light on what it is like to live in our contemporary times. A Muslim woman who seeks to change Western attitudes toward Islam; a literature professor who survived the Holocaust, a poet who has escaped from a psychiatric hospital; a woman from the Al-Anon community; a Romani teenager who proves his status on a dance floor – these are the interviewees of the NILA podcast whose portraits will be displayed at the exhibition.

A podcast is a form of audio media. It is a new-generation radio which has migrated from the FM band to the internet. But the Nanook team of journalists sponsored by its listeners through Patreon do not tell stories confined to only one media. Each NYLA interviewer is immortalized in photographs aiming to capture the uniqueness of these individuals. Headphones will be available for each photograph at the exhibition so that visitors can both see and listen to the heroes of the stories.

A podcast is also a very personal and intimate form of media. In order to create a more intimate relationship with the people depicted in the photographs, the lighting at the library’s exhibition space will be dimmed. The only source of light will be the phonographs themselves while the visitors will be able to hear the stories from the heroes themselves through their silent whisper over the headphones.

Nyla is the heroine of the first documentary film Nanook of the North. The name Nyla means “winner” in Arabic. At the time when the society becomes increasingly divided, and people are feeling lonelier than previous generations, the ability to meet and listen to a fellow human being becomes a victory in itself.

So the Nanook team is happy to share some of these encounters.

The exhibition features the works by the following Nanook photographers: Berta Tilmantaitė, Artūras Morozovas, Severina Venckutė, and Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius.

The interview records were prepared by Karolis Vyšniauskas, Berta Tilmantaitė, Artūras Morozovas, and Martyna Šulskutė.

The sound recordings were made by Katažina Bitowt and Martynas Gailius.

The opening of the exhibition will take place on 15 January at 6:00 p.m. The opening speeches will be given by Karolis Vyšniauskas, host of the NYLA podcast; photographers Artūras Morozovas, Severina Venckutė, and Karolis Pilypas Liutkevičius; Ilma Nausėdaitė who has been an avid supporter of the concept of the Lithuanian podcast from the get-go; and the director of MailerLite, UAB which sponsors the exhibition.

Brief information about the exhibition

Date	15 January – 15 March
Time	library opening hours
Venue	Main Gallery, 3rd floor
Participation	Free entrance
Organiser	Dokumedija, VšĮ
Sponsor	MailerLite, UAB
More information	See our Facebook page