From 4–17 May 2026, Žagarė hosted the international JEWEL Art Residency: Memory & Heritage, a contemporary art, memory, and heritage project dedicated to exploring the town’s Jewish heritage, the multiple layers of its history, and its local identity. Artists from Lithuania, Latvia, Israel, and Peru lived and worked in Žagarė, immersing themselves in its urban landscape, architecture, Jewish heritage sites, historical narratives, surfaces, sounds, and everyday traces.
At the end of the residency, the newly created works were presented in the former Jewish ritual bathhouse (mikvah), the Žagarė Synagogue, and along P. Avižonio Street connecting these two sites.
The residency’s distinctiveness lies not only in the diversity of the artworks but also in the process through which they were created. Rather than arriving with predetermined concepts, the artists developed their works through direct engagement with the place itself. Žagarė became a living site of research, where its architecture, textures, sounds, silences, materials, and historical layers served as active collaborators in the creative process. Participants took part in discussions, seminars, presentations about Jewish heritage in Žagarė.
Following the residency, the non-site-specific artworks will also be exhibited at the venues of the project’s partner organisations, extending the project’s reach and enabling new audiences to engage with the works.
