Profile: Vesta Rugilė Nausėdaitė – Only Natural Design Competitions

Vesta Rugilė Nausėdaitė

Vilnius Academy of Arts

I’m a designer based in Lithuania, with a BA in Design from Vilnius Academy of Arts. My practice lies at the intersection of material research, narrative exploration, and sustainable design. I’m particularly drawn to the emotional and symbolic life of materials, exploring how they carry memory and cultural identity. My work often begins with a question: what should we create in a world already full of objects? This has led me to explore design not only as a way of solving problems, but also as a medium for storytelling and reflection. In my bachelor’s project Epiphanies, I combined sand-cast recycled glass, aluminum, and inherited textile fragments to create light objects that act as vessels of memory and ecological awareness. I’m interested in how materials, whether found, reused, or traditional, can be reinterpreted to tell stories about loss, change, and resilience. I see design as a thoughtful practice that extends beyond aesthetics or utility. It’s about cultivating meaningful relationships with objects, understanding where they come from, and imagining their futures. Through design, I aim to contribute to a more caring and conscious world - one object, one material, one story at a time.

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Epiphanies

Category: Interior

Competitions: Home Competition 2025

Epiphanies is a collection of light fixtures that reflects on my emerging personal design practice and asks what kinds of objects could and should be created in response to a mutilated and endangered natural world. Recognizing that reflection, emotion, and contemplation give objects their lasting value, I turn inward to undertake an autoethnographic investigation, delving into personal, family, and collective memory. This process becomes a framework not only for creative expression but also for rethinking the environmental responsibilities of design. Material is central to this exploration. I work with what is already present – sand collected from the beaches of my childhood, recycled glass shards, repurposed aluminum and bronze and inherited fragments of woven textile. These materials are chosen not only for their tactile or aesthetic qualities, but for the memories they carry: traces of place, labor, lineage, and change. The act of fusing glass shards in sand – an experimental method discovered during material research, becomes a poetic way to transform the overlooked into something enduring. In these light fixtures textures are left raw, imperfections are embraced, and every form reveals something about where it came from. Epiphanies is about loss and transformation, both environmental and personal. It is a collection that not only expresses the people and places that shaped me, but also offers a quiet resistance to disposable design culture. By working slowly, thoughtfully, and with reverence for material, I aim to create objects that hold space for memory, for presence, and for what still remains.