Exhibition specs

• Printed on Natural Pearl Paper • Mounted on 3mm dibond • Ash tree frames, stained • GroGlass anti-reflective art glass

“Sword Lilies” is a series of photographs that visually explores cultural heritage of Latgale (a region located in the Eastern part of Latvia). The project includes photos, which were taken during three years by one well known Latvian photographer – Iveta Vaivode.

Since Latgale’s separation from Vitebsk province in 1917 and its inclusion in Latvia as a part of a united country, this region has had a special place in the formation of Latvian national identity. Although Latgale is a part of Latvia, in some sense it represents a standalone land, in which high religiousness is interspersed with rich folk traditions. Latgalian language, Catholicism and unique, even wild countryside allows stranger to experience magical moments … Read More »

Exhibition specs – Laura Prikule

• Printed on Luster Paper, 265gsm • Mounted on 5mm foamboard • White ash-tree float frame

The main idea behind the exhibition RESTART is a pronounced necessity to deepen the understanding of our world, by highlighting its dialectical connection with the past and the future. We can all but fantasize whether the future influences today, whilst attempting to guess what will be the shape of our future memories?

The exhibition also explores the current trends in photography as an artistic practice, since, as a result of a rapid development of modern technologies, we are forced to re-evaluate the significance of images and their conveyed meaning. Today photography is everywhere. Traditional photography as an aesthetic and documentary medium has been supplemented with numerous other notions, requiring us to survey this new content.

Artists of two generations – Arturs Riņķis (1942), a designer and one of the first pioneers of the kinetic design movement in Latvia, and Iveta Vaivode (1979), an internationally recognized photographer of the youngest artists’ pleiad, have met here together to create their own dialogue in time and space, each applying different kinds of media – from installations and photographs to video, animation and sound. The idea for the project was born into world in the fall of 2013, inspired by Arturs Riņķis’ Kinetic Art Garden In the Middle of Nowhere, which is situated in the suburbs of the countryside town Sabile, Kurzeme region. Over the years this fabulous place has served, for both artists, as a laboratory where relationships between mediums of art were further developed. Finally, in 2016 their ideas have been solidified and now exhibited for the … Read More »

French writer Maurice Blanchot once wrote: “Desire remains in relation to the distantness of the star, entreating the sky, appealing to the universe”. Referring to this Hirohisa Koike explains: “The title of this series “Desiderium” is desire in Latin, which refers to the star (Latin: siderium). Blanchot writes about this desire as “impossible” which remains as such. After studying photography for seven years including PhD, I noticed that ideas for images or strategies for images didn’t make sense to me anymore. Taking photographs should be meaningful. So I was focusing on my daily life and taking photos of its fragments. When I was in Latvia in 2013, I met a girl from Riga, and fell in love with her at the first glance. She had a boyfriend and it seemed impossible to develop the relationship anyway. My feelings for her … Read More »