Researchers of subcultures know that new fashions and musical trends often begin among art students. Kaunas was no exception. From 1996 onwards, the Kaunas Art Institute – now the Kaunas Faculty of the Vilnius Academy of Arts – and its surroundings became one of the city’s most important spaces for alternative culture.

A young generation of artists took shape here, searching for new forms of expression and combining music, video art, design and performance with contemporary art.

The lecture halls, workshops and auditoriums of the Kaunas Art Institute became spaces not only for study, but also for creative experimentation. They hosted informal parties, alternative discos, and sound and visual performances that brought together artists, architects, photographers, musicians and the first DJs. Music was inseparable from art.

Young art students also played an important role in shaping the visual identity of the city’s 1990s parties. They designed posters and created sets, lighting installations, video projections and even improvised decorations.

News of the first events on Muitinės Street in 1996 travelled only through word-of-mouth invitations, some of the city’s earliest flyers, recommendations from friends and community networks. It was precisely this informal atmosphere that helped Kaunas’s alternative cultural scene take shape. Before long, it spilled into venues such as Pakalnė, Antis, Trestas and other urban spaces that would become part of Lithuania’s nightlife history.