Contemporary social art festivals as intertextual manifestations of postmodern cultural identity

ENThe search for cultural identity based on specific mythopoetical images and symbols can be treated as a manifestation of the aesthetic ideas of antimodernization, archaization, and folklorism. The author seeks to define the mythopoetical, textual, and codic aspects of the Lithuanian ornamental tradition and to reveal its intertextual vitality in modem culture, unfold the contextual links of these images within a broader Lithuanian and cross-cultural context, and demonstrate creative interpretations of traditional ornamental forms and symbolism in contemporary social art performances in Vilnius. The author concludes that modern symbols' links with the mythic tradition suggest a new significance, not only of national identity, but even more so as the expression of cultural identity based on mythological, interdisciplinary, and intertextual language associated with the paradigms of collectiveness, archaism, and traditionalism. [From the publication]