Of all the important questions that occupy human minds, one is eternal: how to survive? It's a question that can turn in an instant from a seemingly prosaic problem with a rational solution into a universal riddle to which no one knows the answer. We may engage in credible or more questionable conjecture about the demise of wonderful ancient civilisations; evidence of whose existence is revealed to us from time to time by the soil and cultural memory. But there is no answer to the question, just like there is no solution to the currently acute contradiction between the human desire to control and exploit natural systems and our negligible knowledge about them -- no one can fully explain the workings of ecosystems or what determines biological diversity on Earth. Religious and philosophic teachings all have their own accounts, while the branch of science delegated to study the relationship between living organisms and the environment has acquired the name "ecology", from the Greek word οἶκος, oikos, meaning house or environment. Economics has the same root.

In her exhibition everything you need to see is already in front of you, Priyageetha Dia questions photography as a medium -- repository of memories. Her perspective is rooted in the history of her family in South-East Asia, in the Malay peninsula, which in its heyday was considered to be the most profitable colony in the British Empire. During the Industrial Revolution in the 1870s, rubber manufacturing developed rapidly. The natural caoutchouc resources in South America were no longer able to satisfy the growing pace of production, and therefore the British government decided to artificially create new resources in the colonies of the Far East. Collected in Brazil, the seeds and seedlings of the hevea (a tree with a milky sap -- latex) grew into huge rubber plantations on the other side of the world, where several generations of indentured labourers spent their lives, becoming cheap labour for the British rubber industry.

To exist is always to exist alongside others -- people, systems, memories and presences that remain partially unseen. A Vocabulary for Ghosts proposes that co-existence is not only a social or political condition, but also a form of cohabiting with ghosts: invisible forces, archived and unarchived memories, and quiet presences that inhabit the periphery of our attention. The exhibition brings together three artists who develop distinct visual and material vocabularies to articulate -- and, in subtle ways, care for -- these spectral or marginal states.

The exhibition My Friends brings together Māra Brašmane's first photographs, shot between 1965 and 1969 with her father's large format Voigtländer camera. The black-and-white images show bohemians, artists and writers in a free, relaxed atmosphere -- students who, over the following decades, would grow into the new generation of Riga intellectuals. But at this point, Laima Eglīte, Eižens Valpēters, Eva Gurviča, Juris Pudāns and others are still talking about their future dreams in the cafes Kaza and Putnu Dārzs, expressing their feelings, problems and search for self as young people.

The series of works is based on the ancient solstice traditions of "driving of the birds" and "calling of the birds", which were characteristic of places inhabited by Livonians. In these rituals, large birds symbolised diseases and evil spirits, while small birds were attributed the meanings of light and awakening. With the help of photography and butoh movement, the artist interprets this ritual as a metaphor for inner cleansing -- the desire to cast off the darkness and make space for a new beginning.

We live in a colourful world, and one of the problems faced in the early days of photography was the inability to capture the surrounding reality in equivalent amounts of colour. Hence, the colourising of photographs by hand -- in order to achieve greater verisimilitude or give the image a particular artistic quality -- appeared almost at the same time as the discovery of the photographic process. These manipulations by hand were usually carried out by artists or photographers who had received an artistic education. Thus, each photograph acquired the status of a unique image, similar to that possessed by painted works of art.

Coexistence: Natural/Artificial. Polish Photography After AI proposes that the crucial question is no longer whether an image is natural or synthetic, but how these types interlock within contemporary photographic practice. The lecture will open by recalling artistic practices that anticipated AI-oriented work, by contemporary masters of photography such as Aneta Grzeszykowska and Kobas Laksa, as well as figures less closely affiliated with the art world, like Andrzej Dragan.

Reality in the 21st century is challenging: war, globalisation, the climate crisis, and social and technological changes that make us redefine identity and co-existence. The stream of images that envelop us is no longer merely a record -- it is a language of communication that shapes our understanding of the world. As part of the Riga Photography Biennial 2026, the exhibition Side by Side. Three Looks at the Same Place investigates the possibilities of co-existence among different visual languages, bringing them into dialogue and revealing a single reality from three different perspectives.

The urban environment is very different from natural ecosystems. It has its own grid system and an often adverse microclimate, in which a person from the countryside must navigate discomfort in order to adapt to an unfamiliar urban atmosphere. The project brings together photographs from the collection of Irēna Bužinska, documenting the life and representation of Rigans in salon photography from the late 19th century to the first half of the 20th century.

Co-existence in today's society, where disinformation, social division and conspiracy theories have become a normal part of human life, seems complicated and almost impossible. As part of the thematic framework of the Riga Photography Biennial 2026, the symposium will focus on the subject of togetherness, which encompasses questions of "me" and "us", emphasising empathy, respect and love as an important component for co-existence in contemporary reality.

The creative workshop together with artist Līga Spunde is suitable for children aged 5 to 12 years. Necessary materials will be provided on site. Families are welcome to come at any time convenient for them throughout the duration of the workshop from 12:00 to 16:00.

In her exhibition Tuesday, the artist Ieva Epnere turns to the subject of herself and an observation of the cyclical nature of life. The impulse behind the series of photographs was the artist's weekly journey along the route Riga--Liepāja--Riga. At the Liepāja Music, Art and Design Secondary School the artist heads the Department of Audiovisual Art, where she also works as a teacher. She returns to Liepāja, a place that holds family history and personal memories for her.