"Lauminėjimas" muziejuje: lietuvių liaudies žaidimo užrištomis akimis gyvoji rekonstrukcija

LTŠiame straipsnyje analizuojama lietuvių liaudies žaidimo užrištomis akimis varianto, vadinamo "Lauminėjimas", gyvoji rekonstrukcija, vykusi Lietuvos liaudies buities muziejuje (toliau – LLBM). Ji nagrinėjama kaip performatyvus vyksmas. Žaidimas sukuria situaciją, kai judant didžiuliame ir kompleksiniame eksponate – gyvenamajame name – ir būnant apsuptiems smulkių eksponatų, netikėtai susiduriama su autentiškais eksponatais kaip etnografine visuma; randasi individualūs dalyvių potyriai daugybiniu būdu pažinti tamsųjį Kalėdų laikotarpį išankstinių bei įgytų žinių muziejuje kontekste per muziejininkų koduojamus simbolius. Raktiniai žodžiai: gyvoji muziejinė rekonstrukcija, performatyvumas, autentiškumas, Lietuvos liaudies buities muziejus. [Iš leidinio]

ENThe research into a live reconstruction of Blind Man’s Buff, a version of the traditional Lithuanian folk game Lauminėjimas, enabled the Open-Air Museum of Lithuania to be perceived as a place for imagining ‘authentic’ magic that offers plenty of unusual objects, words, symbols and actions, and associates game repetition with ritual. Through iterations, the playful situation by the museum staff became an effective teaching tool to reversibly draw children into the world of ethnographic authenticity, where time divides into two parallels, the past in the present, submerging participants in a time scale in order to perceive authenticity at the opposite pole, the present time; and the generated cyclicality. This offers participants an authentic experience related to the perception, acquisition and consolidation of knowledge. It became obvious that manifestations of the authenticity of a game and the surrounding ethnographic environment can be perceived or expressed only in active interaction with a person. Some lie in the conceptual aspect of reconstructing the process; others lie in the visual setting of objects as witnesses of the past. Using unique material from the museum’s archives, and being acquainted with various ethnographic descriptions of the game in the educational programme, the museum staff encoded the eye band in adjacent-parallel meanings, lending it an expression of multiple symbols: the darkness of long winter evenings, mystified and mysterious time, and the metaphor of a laumė (a Lithuanian mythical creature associated with the dark environment of rural dwellings when there was no electricity). All this was linked to the educational programme’s previous experiences or stories used to express these phenomena at Christmas time: entering a dark dwelling, observing the lighting of a candle, candle-star symbolism, and the mystical mystery felt throughout the programme.Thus, the museum staff conceptually connected the game to the Christmas season through encoded symbols. A specific meaning occurs in a specific context. It means that a blindfold during the game Lauminėjimas is not directly perceived as a headscarf or a piece of fabric used to wrap food or small things. On the contrary, in a cultural process which generates symbols, the game becomes a bridge connecting not the physical but the metaphysical aspects of knowledge, perception, active involvement and experience, which is very necessary for the younger generation, in order to develop a critical understanding of Lithuanian ethnic culture, which, as is validated in the context of the research, reveals itself fully in a performative act through authentic experience. The result also shows that children have plenty of space to discover, connect and interpret unique insights through their experiences during the game, thus creating their own personal authentic experiences. When some children, lauminėtojai, experience a sense of darkness, others experience completely different things; that is, in trying to escape the catcher and hiding in the room, they encounter authentic exhibits, such as 19th and 20th-century household items, and various pieces of furniture. When interviewed, children from different groups emphasised minds and ideas connected to old times, paying attention to household items and the setting. All the groups highlighted the different things that stuck in their memory. For example, some mentioned the rare ethnographic name of the game, which they had never heard before. Nowadays, it is known to them as a game that is also played blindfolded, Akla višta (literally Blind Hen). Meanwhile, others noticed some elements from the surrounding extraordinary environment: large apples on the Christmas tree as unusual baubles.Furthermore, in both groups, the lauminėtojai emphasised the sense of darkness. The children’s visual and performative familiarity with objects-exhibits as witnesses of the past brought them closer to new authentic experiences. From an observer’s point of view, no other part of the programme could so disperse children in slow motion throughout the room of a dwelling (a large and complex exhibit) like the game Lauminėjimas for cognitive purposes. The feedback from participants shows that a museum is a place where many ways of getting to know each other can take place, by applying multi-layered criteria: a) emphasising different aspects in setting the ethnographic environment (for example, small apples on a small Christmas tree, and big apples on a big tree), thus creating different links between objects and phenomena; b) applying different interpretations of the same phenomenon or object, which allows us to create new meanings and introduce new perceptions; (c) the participation of participants from different backgrounds, which builds contrasting understandings of the learning environment; and d) the interaction between participants, the participants and the environment, and the participants and Father Christmas at a given moment, thus creating unique and authentic experiences. Key words: live reconstruction, performativity, authenticity, the Open-Air Museum of Lithuania. [From the publication]

• Antropologinė žemaičių charakteristika / Povilas Višinskis ; sudarytojas Gintautas Česnys ; [iš rusų ir lenkų kalbų vertė Vytautas Vitkauskas]. Vilnius : Valstybės žinios, 2004. 183 p.
• Tradicijos sąvokos kaita : monografija / Jurga Jonutytė. Vilnius : Vilniaus universitetas, 2011. 201 p.