EXHIBITION’S PARTICIPANTS

Marianne Bjørnmyr

Marianne Bjørnmyr

Marianne Bjørnmyr (1986) is based in Bodø, Norway. Bjørnmyr’s work is concerned with photography, authenticity, and documentation, dwelling upon visibility and invisibility, science, and phenomena. Her installations are often made up of analogue photography and casts.

Bjørnmyr’s work has been shown at Peckham24 (London), Unseen Photofestival (Amsterdam), and Kunstquartier Bethanien (Berlin) among others. Recent solo exhibitions include galleries such as MELK Gallery (Oslo), Buskerud kunstsenter (Drammen), Stormen kunst/Dáddja (Bodø), Nordnorsk kunstsenter (Svolvær), and the Reykjavik Museum of Photography. Her work is held in public collections like The North Norwegian Art Museum and The Arctic University of Norway (KORO, Public Art Norway). Bjørnmyr co-founded the artist driven space NOUA in Bodø In collaboration with Dan Mariner in 2017. She received her MA in Photography from London College of Communication, University of the Arts London, in 2012.
Bolderājas Grupa

Bolderājas Grupa

Bolderājas Grupa was founded at the turn of the millennium as an association of artists and creatives interested in researching and collecting the cultural heritage of the community. They see their work to protect this heritage as something between social activism and contemporary art. For twenty years now, Bolderājas Grupa has implemented the idea of a museum without walls by inviting artists to interpret the stories of Bolderāja’s and Daugavgrīva’s people, nature, and history in situations where they have been endangered: House in Bolderāja (1998) on Lielā iela; Ballast (1999) in Daugavgrīva Fortress; Post Scriptum (2000) in the Comet Fort; and projects on Krievu Island, in Tekstilnieku Park, in the local pumping station, on the River Daugava, and under the ice of a quarry lake. The association’s collection – an assortment of photos, documents, and objects – is not only an impetus for new ideas but makes an argument for protecting the community’s heritage and helping it get landmark status, reverse decisions, and expand borders. Since 2015, Bolderājas Grupa has been linked with the Daugavgrīva Fortress on its journey from ruin to excellence.
Irēna Bužinska

Irēna Bužinska

Irēna Bužinska (1955) has received an MA from the Art Academy of Latvia. Since 1977, she has been working at the Latvian National Museum of Art, currently as exhibition curator. She has published more than 300 articles on Latvian art history and contemporary art exhibitions. Since 1989, she has focused on the research of Latvian art history, especially on the legacy of Voldemārs Matvejs, and the activities of artists-photographers, which resulted in the exhibition Hybrid Overflights. The Artist as Photographer. Mid 19th century - 2010, LNMM, Arsenāls Exhibition Hall (2011) and an exhibition of 19th century art photo reproductions at the Art Museum Riga Bourse (2019). Curator of several photography exhibitions by Voldemārs Matvejs, Inta Ruka, Andrejs Grants, Egons Spuris, Aivis Šmulders, Valdis Celms, Atis Ieviņš. Currently, her focus is on the use of photomontage in the 1920s-30s press in Latvia, as well as amateur photo postcards. The book Vladimir Markov and Russian Primitivism: A Charter for the Avant-Garde (in collaboration with Z. S. Strother and Jeremy Howard) has been published by Ashgate (USA, 2015, 2nd edition 2019).
Santa France

Santa France

Santa France (1993) is a Latvian digital artist mainly focused on exploring the potential of 3D software and its use in creating web-collages, videos, animated .GIF images, and digital illustrations. Her almost photorealistic, yet uncanny compositions are characterised by their impossibly pristine surroundings and the contrast between organic and man-made objects. The hyperreality her approach creates draws attention to the software used in creating the works, and her visual language is used to examine issues rooted in our contemporary existence. Her works deal with themes of self-reflection, solitude, nostalgia, and digital culture. France currently lives and works in Berlin.
Gailė Griciūtė

Gailė Griciūtė

Gailė Griciūtė (1985) is a composer and sound artist. She graduated from the Sibelius Academy of Music in Helsinki and the Lithuanian Academy of Music and Theatre, and was a guest student at the Städelschule in Frankfurt am Main. Griciūtė is a member of the performance collective Eye Gymnastics. The group's works have been shown at various festivals in Lithuania and Germany. Some of the festivals and concert series where Griciūtė's sound and art projects were presented include Ahead, Jauna mūzika, Soundscape, NOA (Estonia), Gaida (Lithuania), Couterflows (UK), Sound Art Festival (Kaliningrad), Unsound (Krakow), Labor Sonor (Berlin), Tectonics (Tel Aviv), and Atmospherics (Haus Der Kunst, Munich).
Annemarija Gulbe

Annemarija Gulbe

Annemarija Gulbe (1997) graduated from the Department of Visual Communication at the Art Academy of Latvia and the ISSP School of Contemporary Photography; she has participated in several master classes and group exhibitions and has organised two solo exhibitions. In 2019, she won the main prize at the Biennale Jeune création européene in France. When creating photo series and installations, Gulbe focuses on reflecting everyday life and society, capturing supposedly common phenomena but offering a restructured context. Her approach is characterised by sharp and fearless contrasts, and the exploitation of ostensibly marginal territories and the essence of life.
Aksel Haagensen

Aksel Haagensen

Aksel Haagensen (1993) is an Estonian artist. He holds a bachelor's degree in installation and sculpture from the Estonian Academy of Arts. In his artistic practice, Haagensen works with photographic media and documentary theory. He explores whatever is excluded from the frame in photography – either physically or theoretically.
Hele

Hele

Hele (1991) graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia in 2017. In 2016, she completed her studies at the Escola Massana Center d'Art i Disseny in Barcelona. She has participated in group exhibitions in Europe and the USA and organised solo exhibitions North 001 (2018) at 6 Tallinas iela (Riga), and POEM°N (2019) at Akron Gallery (Trondheim). Her most recent solo exhibition, I Will Meet You At The River, took place in August 2020 in Valga Chapel, Estonia, as part of the EASA Architecture Residency and Summer School. Her works are inspired by the interaction between nature and the intangible world, whilst placing great emphasis on ecological problems and forgotten values. Hele’s approach is multidisciplinary, and she combines various techniques and media in her projects – analogue photography, sound, textiles, spatial objects, graphics, and video etc.
Cloe Jancis

Cloe Jancis

Cloe Jancis (1992) is an Estonian artist mainly working with photography, video, and installation. Jancis is intrigued by women’s social image and roles, the construction of identity, and the rituals and customs connected with presenting femininity. Her self-portraits often refer to an interconnection between personal and social desires, and anticipations. They emphasise the delicate boundary between existence and slipping from one role into another. Jancis graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a bachelor’s degree in photography in 2018. She is currently studying in a master’s programme at the Faculty of Liberal Arts at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her recent exhibitions include Between You and This (2021) at Festival Fictions Documentaires (Carcassonne), In front of the mirror, on a day full of enthusiasm, you put your mask on too heavily, it bites your skin (2021) at Temnikova & Kasela Gallery together with Sigrid Viir (Tallinn), a group exhibition Exhibition as Conversation (2021) at Tartu Art House (Tartu), and a group exhibition Letters from a Foreign Mind (2021) at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (Tallinn).
Kristine Krauze-Slucka

Kristine Krauze-Slucka

Kristine Krauze-Slucka (1979) is a visual artist based in Riga, Latvia. She observes and studies the topic of changes in the relationship between man and nature, employing a mixture of analog and digital media in her artistic practice, paying attention to the processes of adaptation and hybridization, often focusing on the material aspects of the chosen media. She has graduated from the ISSP School’s two-year contemporary photography education programme and obtained a Master’s degree from the Visual Communication Department of the Art Academy of Latvia (2020). She also received a scholarship from the Foundation of the painter Valdemars Tone (2020) and the Nordic and Baltic Young Artist Award 2020. She has received the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2021 Award, earning an opportunity to publish a book in collaboration with NoRoutine Books. The artist has participated in exhibitions since 2017.
Nico Krijno

Nico Krijno

Nico Krijno (1981) has a background in theatre and experimental video and works at the blurry intersection of photography, collage, painting, sculpture, and performance. Probing the boundaries of each, his work materialises through a stream of unique and colourful abstractions that not only act as autonomous pieces of art but, when seen as a collection, Krijno’s obsession and constant intrigue into the perception of photographs becomes decidedly evident. Often working with discarded materials found in his immediate surroundings, he interprets and re-imagines them to find alternative structures for how meaning and matter are both constructed and perceived. He describes photographing these ephemeral structures as a private and physical performance with the camera as the audience. Importantly, the act of photographing these theatrical scenes is only one part of Krijno’s work. Through an array of digital tools, he re-imagines the materials, colours, and forms countless times until our understanding of each photograph is constantly being challenged, always failing to remain still.
Madara Kvēpa

Madara Kvēpa

Madara Kvēpa (1996) received her bachelor’s degree from the Painting Department of the Art Academy of Latvia in 2019 and is currently pursuing a master's degree. Since 2016, she has actively participated in group exhibitions and has held four solo exhibitions.

Her painting style speaks of certain themes and incorporates a specific system of images, whilst at the same time remaining abstract in its representation and open to viewers’ interpretation. Surrounding objects and events often become the focus of Kvēpa's paintings, revealing themselves anew to the gaze of the artist and of those appreciating her art. The fragile nuances of painting alternate with impressive technical execution, confirming the topicality and necessity of contemporary painting. Kvēpa has been invited to participate in the exhibition due to her interest in the aesthetics of details and her ability to find meaning in seemingly forgotten objects and events.
Reinis Lismanis

Reinis Lismanis

Reinis Lismanis (1992) is an artist based in London. He has had solo exhibitions at the Arsenāls Exhibition Hall and the Latvian National Museum of Art (Riga), Brockley Gardens and no format Gallery (London), and at Brighton CCA: Dorset Place. His works have been included in group shows at KAI Art Center (Tallinn), Benaki Museum (Athens), the National Library of Latvia (Riga), Riga Photomonth and Riga Photography Biennial, Fotopub Festival (Novo Mesto), Galleria SP3 (Treviso) and FUGA (Budapest). Lismanis has published two monographs: Trial and Error (Skinnerboox, 2019) and T6031_T6061_T8001 (NoRoutine Books, 2019). Lismanis holds a degree in photography from the University of Brighton and is currently studying art history at Birkbeck, University of London.
Sam Margevicius

Sam Margevicius

Sam Margevicius (1989) is an artist who explores the materiality of photographic prints and plays with the medium’s ability to represent sculpture, drawing, and performance. In 2021, Margevicius worked with Small Editions (New York) to publish Darkroom Drawing, an ode to the disappearing trade of analogue photographic printing based on his four years working under a master printer. In 2019, Margevicius’ installation Twenty-six was the subject of a solo exhibition at Baxter St. CCNY Gallery (New York), and he was awarded a fellowship by the Praire-Ronde Artist Residency (MI, USA). In 2017, he received his MFA from The International Center of Photography / Bard College programme in advanced photographic studies. Margevicius lives and works in New York City.
Katja Mater

Katja Mater

Katja Mater (1979) is a visual artist, filmmaker, editor, and organiser. She studied at the Rietveld Academy and subsequently at the postdoctoral institute de Ateliers in Amsterdam. Mater's practice focuses on the parameters of photography and film from a meta-perspective, using them as non-transparent media. By creating hybrids between different optical media, installations, and performances she documents something that is often positioned beyond our human ability to see. Interested in revealing a different or alternative (experience of) reality through capturing the areas where optical media hardly behave like the human eye, Mater mediates between time, space, perception, and our understanding of them. She records events that simultaneously can and cannot be – hovering between information and interpretation. Mater’s work has been exhibited internationally in institutions such as Het Stedelijk Museum Bureau Amsterdam, Centre d'Art Contemporain Genève, De Vleeshal Middelburg, Centraal Museum Utrecht, Temporary Gallery (Cologne), Fotogalleriet (Oslo), Marres (Maastricht), and Kiosk (Ghent).
Erin O’Keefe

Erin O’Keefe

Erin O’Keefe (1962) is a photographer based in New York City. O’Keefe uses still life to explore spatial perception and the uncertainty of photographic images. Her background in architecture informs her work through both subject and process. Her work has been exhibited internationally, most recently at Seventeen Gallery (London) and Albada Jelgersma Gallery (Amsterdam).
Paulius Petraitis

Paulius Petraitis

Paulius Petraitis (1985) is an artist, theorist, and independent curator based in Vilnius. His practice orbits around image-making in broader social and cultural contexts. Much of his work explores the role of technology in meaning-making and examines ways photographic images function in online and offline environments. Petraitis’ recent project A man with dark hair and a sunset in the background explores visual recognition through a dialogue-based approach with an image interpretation software. It was presented in a solo exhibition at Lokomotif and published in 2020. Petraitis’ art books are held in numerous institutional collections, including libraries at MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and MACBA, as well as the Clark Art Institute and Yale University.
Vilma Pimenoff

Vilma Pimenoff

Vilma Pimenoff (1980) is a Finnish artist. Her work often deals with semiotics and explores the ways in which we perceive the world around us through signs and symbols. She is equally interested in observing cultural conventions through studying everyday objects, by placing them slightly out of their expected context, or by altering their scale. Pimenoff’s works have been exhibited at The Photographers’ Gallery (London), at the photography festival Circulation(s) at Centre CentQuatre (Paris) and in large format at various metro stations around Paris, at the Moscow Multimedia Art Museum in Russia, and at galleries in Sweden, Finland, Italy, France, and the UK. In 2017, Pimenoff received the Finnish Edit Prize for Editorial Photographer of the Year for her photos in Image magazine and she was also rewarded as part of the Celeste Prize competition in Florence, Italy. Pimenoff has a Master of Arts in Photography from LCC / University of the Arts London. She currently lives and works in Helsinki.
Zanda Puče

Zanda Puče

Zanda Puče (1992) graduated from the Department of Graphics of the Art Academy of Latvia, the ISSP School of Contemporary Photography, and studied new media art at the University of Liepāja. In her creative practice, Puče combines drawing, graphics and digital graphics, photography, video, and installation. She has participated in several group exhibitions in Latvia, Lithuania, Sweden, and Germany, and has organised solo exhibitions. Her exhibitions EX-libri Art Voyage and Hunting (2016) received the Sigulda Region Award for Culture.
Charles Richardson

Charles Richardson

Charles Richardson (1979) received his MA in ine Art Media at Slade School of Art in 2014. In 2014, he won the Saatchi New Sensations prize for his video installation Rehearsal. Straight after his first solo exhibition at Cabin Gallery (London), he was included in the Daata Editions exhibitions at LOOP (Barcelona), NADA (New York), and later at the Venice Bienniale in 2017. Richardson was selected and exhibited with Bloomberg New Contemporaries at the World Museum (Liverpool) and the ICA (London). In 2014–2015 he showed his work at Film at Art Basel in Miami Beach (Miami) and also in 2015, he exhibited the solo installation HEADBONE at The Zabludowicz Collection (London). His first overseas solo show was 2nd Place in Cologne in 2016 and soon after he had another solo show Displacement Behaviour at Exeter Phoenix in the UK. His work has been included both digitally and as a large installation in the ARS17 exhibition in spring 2017 at Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art (Helsinki) and his most recent international solo exhibition New Territories took place at Floating Projects Gallery (Hong Kong) as part of a residency funded by the Arts Council.
Johan Rosenmunthe

Johan Rosenmunthe

Johan Rosenmunthe (1982) lives and works in Copenhagen. His work spans from artist books to sculptural installations and performances, and deals with potential energy, time, and archaeology. He has recently exhibited at Overgaden Institute of Contemporary Art (Copenhagen), Tranen (Gentofte), Atelier Néerlandais (Paris), Museum De Domijnen (Sittard) and performed at Tate Modern (London), and at C/O Berlin. Rosenmunthe received the Carl Nielsen og Anne Marie Carl-Nielsens talent grant in 2018. He attended the Fatamorgana school of art photography in Copenhagen and has a BA in Human Science from Roskilde University. He is the Co-Founder of the curatorial collective and publishing house Lodret Vandret, the exhibition space New Shelter Plan, and the art book festival One Thousand Books.
Krišs Salmanis

Krišs Salmanis

Krišs Salmanis (1977) is one of the leading Latvian artists today. He graduated from the Visual Communication Department of the Art Academy of Latvia and the Academy of Media Arts Cologne. Salmanis has participated in exhibitions since the mid-1990s. His creative practice spans installation, objects, video, and animation. He represented Latvia at the 55th Venice Biennale in 2013 with the exhibition North by Northeast together with Kaspars Podnieks. In 2017, he was the recipient of the most prestigious award in Latvian visual art – the Purvītis Prize.
Sara Skorgan Teigen

Sara Skorgan Teigen

Sara Skorgan Teigen (1984) is an interdisciplinary artist, working with photography, performance, and the artist book as her main visual instruments. She studied at the Fatamorgana school of art photography in Copenhagen in 2008-2009, and at the International Center of Photography (ICP) in New York in 2011-2012. Teigen has a BA in medium and material-based art from the National Academy of the Arts (Oslo), where she is currently doing an MA. She has exhibited internationally at galleries, photo-festivals, and photo-fairs in USA, Tokyo, China, Mexico, England, France, Italy, Greece, Spain, Switzerland, Netherlands, Latvia, Belgium, Sweden, Denmark, and Norway.
Līga Spunde

Līga Spunde

Līga Spunde (1990) was born in Riga, Latvia. Her works are often created as multimedia installations in which personal stories are closely intertwined with deliberately construed fictions. By casting a wide and yet, at the same time, fine thematic network, Spunde’s works contain references to different periods and symbols. The precision of interpretation together with newly acquired contexts become an extension of personal experience touching on well-known truths. Her works are executed using a variety of materials and media. Spunde has participated in several exhibitions and art projects in Latvia and abroad: No Blessing for Evil Will Come (Being Safe is Scary, Survival Kit 11, 2020, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Riga); When Hell Is Full, the Dead Will Walk the Earth (Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga, 2019); Champs-Élysées (427 Gallery, Riga, 2019); Interlude, in collaboration with Alvis Misjuns (Riga Circus Elephant Stables, KVADRIFRONS, Riga), 2018; Screen Age I: Self-Portrait (Riga Art Space, Riga, 2018); Free French Fries (Komplot, Belgium, 2017); NNN (LNMA, Riga), 2017, etc.
Andrejs Strokins

Andrejs Strokins

Andrejs Strokins (1984) is a photographer living and working in Riga. He works across documentary photography, as well as with vernacular images and found image archives. He has had numerous solo and group exhibitions in Latvia and abroad, including The Baltic Pavilion at the Venice Architecture Biennale (2016), Unseen Amsterdam (2016), Kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga, 2017), Latvian National Museum of Art (2017), Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (2018), and the contemporary art festival SURVIVAL KIT (2019). He has received numerous awards, including Foam Talents. In addition to pursuing his personal projects, Strokins works as a freelance photographer, concentrating on reportage and portraiture.
Sigrid Viir

Sigrid Viir

Sigrid Viir (1979) is a photo and installation artist from Tallinn. She studied cultural theory in the Estonian Institute of Humanities and graduated from the Department of Photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Viir is interested in the daily aspects of human existence and the tangle of social agreements that come with it, the borderline between the totality of work and personal time for rest as well as themes of visual language. She is one of three members in the art collective Visible Solutions LLC and has actively taken part in exhibitions both in Estonia and abroad. Viir was nominated for the Köler Prize (2011), participated in Manifesta 9 together with Visible Solutions LLC in 2012, and has received the Annual Award of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia twice (in 2013 and 2019). Her recent exhibitions include False Vacationer which was staged at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia in 2019 and at Koenig 2 Gallery (Vienna) in 2021, and In front of the mirror, on a day full of enthusiasm, you put your mask on too heavily, it bites your skin (2021) at Temnikova & Kasela Gallery (Tallinn) together with Cloe Jancis.