Art project #wallsthatremember is a contemporary tribute to the historical memory of the Vilnius’ Jewish community. Prior to the horrors of World War II, Vilnius had one of the most active and largest Jewish communities in the region. During the Second World War, this community was nearly eradicated, which is definitely one of the most painful losses to Lithuania and Vilnius in particular. We have no right to forget those people – and we shall not.
However, we pay little attention and care to the time when these people were simply happy here, in Vilnius. These bright memories have to be relived and visible with the naked eye. How the Jewish community worked, how they built families, how they grew up and grew old – we can revisit all of that. We, the ones that live here now – and the ones who love this city as much as they did.
This is the essence of the art project. It’s like a time machine that connects two worlds that happen in the same place, but in different times. The project is based on reviving the historical moments of the Vilnius Jews’ life. Reviving them on the very same walls that saw them live. The graffiti-style paintings are based on actual footage of the Jewish community’s life in Vilnius, those pictures are re-adapted to a modern eye and transferred upon the walls of the historical Jewish quarter.
“Walls that Remember” is a project striving to achieve several goals. First of all, it aims to bring back memories of a large and flourishing Jewish community in Vilnius, a community that we ought to be proud of. Also, the project seeks to encourage contact and tolerance among various social and ethnic groups in Vilnius by using a synthesis of contemporary art and historical footage as means of communication.
Project partners: Vilnius City Municipality and “Walls that remember”
