Ten years of Nida Doctoral School

Now in its 10th iteration, the Nida Doctoral School of Vilnius Academy of Arts convenes this week with a focus on Experimental Feminisms: Correspondence, Fabulation, Reenactment.

The Nida Doctoral School (NDS) began in 2012 as a gathering of PhD in Practice researchers at Nida Art Colony of Vilnius Academy of Arts (VAA NAC). It was formally established in 2015 in collaboration with Aalto University School of Arts, Design and Architecture, and was joined in 2018 by the University of the Arts Helsinki and the University of the Arts London. Each August, the programme is held as a five-day intensive course in the distinctive setting of Nida, Lithuania, on the Curonian Spit between the Baltic Sea and Curonian Lagoon.

Since 2021, NDS has partnered annually with PhD departments across Europe, shaping a school grounded in shared resources and the understanding that artistic research needs time, space, and a conceptual framing to share work in progress, open it up to different readings, and allow for unexpected encounters. The Curonian Spit and VAA NAC provide the environment for the school to unfold in a focused and immersive way.

NDS 2025 is developed by artist Rebecca Fortnum, Professor of Fine Art at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. This iteration invites participants to engage with and apply research methods developed through intersectional feminist thinking, activating ways of articulating absences and re-evaluating traces within established histories and theories. It seeks to foster discussion around artistic research methods and asks what is at stake in bringing past and present voices into relation.

Building on the methods that animated discourse on experiment, form, and sexual difference in feminist work of the 1960s and 1970s, the school engages these approaches in contemporary contexts. Through seminars, workshops and discussions, the school carousels three imaginative methodologies—correspondence, fabulation, and reenactment—which artist-researchers can orient towards their own interests and inquiries.

Tutors of NDS 2025 include: Ayesha Hameed, Chantal Faust, Ilse van Rijn, Marita Fraser, Onyeka Igwe, Rebecca Fortnum, Sophie Orlando.

Over the five days, participants will work in a woodworking studio led by Katharina Riedl from the collective gemeinsam bauen wir neu, as part of the exhibition Neringa Wood Works by Neringa Forest Architecture, and in a publications' and printing studio led by Philippa Driest from KIOSK Rotterdam.

This year, NDS brings together 17 PhD candidates from nine partnering PhD in Practice programmes:

Alice Harry (The Royal College of Art), Ana Vicente Richards (University of the Arts London), Anna Knappe (University of the Arts Helsinki), Anna Wohlgemuth (Zurich University of the Arts), Anouk Hoogendoom (Zurich University of the Arts), Charlotte Yao (University of the Arts London), Giulia Astesani (The Glasgow School of Art), Hanneriina Moisseinen (University of the Arts Helsinki), Ieva Rižė (Vilnius Academy of Arts), Indrė Liškauskaitė (Vilnius Academy of Arts), Joana Quiroga (University of the Arts Helsinki), Justina Semčenkaitė (Vilnius Academy of Arts), Karolin Poska (Estonian Academy of Arts), Natalie Novik (HDK-Valand, Gothenburg University), Nina Nowak (Vilnius Academy of Arts), Sophie Durand (Vilnius Academy of Arts), Zorana Unković (The Academy of Fine Arts Zagreb)

Co-founded by Rasa Antanavičiūtė, Executive Director of VAA NAC (2011–19), and Vytautas Michelkevičius, Professor and head of the Doctoral Programme in Fine Art, NDS is part of the doctoral programme at Vilnius Academy of Arts. Over the past five years, it has been organised by Egija Inzule, Director of VAA NAC (2019–25), together with tutors from partner institutions as close collaborators. 

We extend our sincere gratitude to all tutors, guests, hosts, friends, and PhD candidates whose commitment and contributions have shaped Nida Doctoral School throughout this time and will continue to carry it forward.