Artists selected for Learning Materials Residency 2026

Animal-skin looking background with three circular images in the middle. On the right, there is a field with a hay skeleton, in the middle, an abstract web and art in the back and on the left, wooden pieces on top of each other.

Circle images from left to right: Paula Zvane, Krišjānis Elviks, Aistė Gaidilionytė & Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė, background image: Yese Astarloa / Koyne Program

HIAP, Bioart Society, Koynẽ Program, SWAMP: Art Material and Waste Management Point and TUO TUO are pleased to announce the artists selected for the Learning Materials residency 2026: Aistė Gaidilionytė & Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė, Paula Zvane and Krišjānis Elviks.

Paula Zvane works across sculpture, installation and painting with natural and bio-based materials such as kombucha leather, recycled fur, plant fibres and organic residues. During the residency, she will expand her research into biomaterials by growing kombucha sheets, testing plant-based hardening agents and developing hybrid, skin-like or structural surfaces that explore fragility, resilience and ecological interdependence.

Krišjānis Elviks is a scenographer and interdisciplinary artist whose practice investigates the relationship between body and space through installation, performance and text. Within Learning Materials, he will experiment with sustainable and immaterial approaches to large-scale installations, working with second-hand textiles, biomaterials and Baltic Sea ecologies to develop temporary, circular and collaborative methods that can be shared with future scenography and costume design students.

Aistė Gaidilionytė & Kamilė Vasiliauskaitė are a Vilnius-based duo with a background in architecture, whose practice draws on new materialism, post-growth and feminist spatial theories. At HIAP, they will further their research into wood composites, tracing how ostensibly “sustainable” inventions have transformed, and experimenting with non-toxic, hands-on ways to reuse construction leftovers and rethink storage, waste and material agency.

The Learning Materials programme is a collaboration with Bioart Society, HIAP, Koynẽ Program and SWAMP: Art Material and Waste Management Point and TUO TUO. Funded by Nordic Culture Point, the programme brings together artists and organisations to rethink our relationship with materials, waste and ecological futures in the Nordic–Baltic region.