Elena Ruikyte
M
y name is Elena Ruikyte. I鈥檓 from Lithuania and currently studying MA in International Cultural Policy and Management. I initially joined the project as an opportunity to work in an interdisciplinary team of students by offering my own skills and knowledge in public communication, event and project management.
The project allowed me to experience way more than I expected 鈥� from learning about the history of our university, to the exchange of ideas and knowledge among ourselves in the most creative ways.
From the very beginning, I鈥檝e joined and been leading Digital Team of the project. My job was to identify the best possible communication strategy, digital platforms for public engagement and overviewing the development of an online exhibition. I guess, the beauty and the biggest challenge of volunteering-based project is that people join and leave the project whenever it is best convenient for them. So I definitely learned how important it is to keep your team members engaged and especially when we are working in an international and interdisciplinary team.
Nevertheless, working in the Digital Team was an exciting experience and I鈥檓 very grateful to Madeleine Snowdon for her input on creating the logo and style guide of our exhibition. Also, I can鈥檛 say how much impressed I am by the work Eilidh McKell did on managing @arts_at_warwick Instagram account. Our initial idea was to have accounts on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram but once project鈥檚 research started, we decided to better focus on just one platform and do it properly aiming to reach our current and future students. Together with Eilidh and Madeleine we created the framework for our content, decided on the themes, publishing frequency etc. Eilidh did an amazing job by conducting her own research when finding content 鈥� now it is a base for our online exhibition.
I would lie saying that the current crisis of COVID-19 hasn鈥檛 affected me. Of course it did, but moving from the physical to the digital space has not been such a big challenge for me at least workwise. It made us think more creatively and we managed to keep the project alive.
I鈥檓 quite excited that our exhibition first will be launched in digital space as it gives our team members to learn new skills too. However, I really enjoyed the creative session on the development of a physical exhibition that we had before the quarantine. We came up with great ideas and even plans together with graphics of the visitor鈥檚 movement flow that hopefully could be used in the future.
Honestly, I鈥檓 very excited to be part of this project, as it enabled me to implement my knowledge and skills, to exchange ideas, to experience flowing creativity and to build hopefully long-lasting relations with other students and staff members.