This year the Riga Photography Biennial Seeking the Latest in Photography! Award was presented for the sixth time. The goal of the award is to discover and recognise the creative efforts of young artists who demonstrate the power of the image in their works, offering an original point of view and conceptual depth suited to the times. It highlights emerging Baltic artists whose works are already full of these qualities. Since 2019, the award has been presented as part of the Biennial’s programme NEXT, in cooperation with the ISSP Gallery.

In 2025, the international jury presented the main award to Ruudu Ulas (EE) for her series ‘Difficult Objects’. Commenting on their decision, the jury member Kulla Laas (EE) said: “Ruudu Ulas is very skilful at creating powerful photographic imagery with minimal elements and pure forms of display. The depicted scenes are frozen and isolated moments in time that have a quiet oddness to them and always leave something unseen. Her work has a strong cinematic quality, and each separate image raises expectancy for the viewer. This is reached successfully with the combination of staged and documentary photography, and sizes that put small material objects and large architectural structures at the same scale in the narrative. The sense of the images is filled with an air of the unknown, anxiety and fear, thus effectively commenting on the state of contemporary life.”

The NEXT 2025 Award launch event at the ISSP Gallery will feature a solo exhibition by the award-winner, as well as presentations by six finalists nominated by the jury – Ruudu Ulas (EE), Klaus Leo Richter (LT), Riin Maide (EE), Keiu Maasik (EE), Gedvile Tamosiunaite (LT) and Paula Punkstiņa (LV).

The VV Foundation presented a 1,000-euro monetary prize and the opportunity to spend a month working at their residency PAiR (Pāvilosta Artist in Residency) in Pāvilosta, Latvia to the Estonian artist Karlotta Lainväe, who participated in the award with the series “Where Do I Go When I Follow the Thread?”. “Her work reflects metaphysical questions that are always relevant to humanity, about the framework of a person’s inner and outer sense of security in the world, which ensures emotional, spiritual and intellectual evolution. We challenge ourselves, deconstruct ourselves and put ourselves back together again and again – better or different than we were before. This is what permeates the work of the young Estonian photographer and creates a very personal aesthetic DNA,” the foundation explains.

The Lithuanian publishing initiative NoRoutine Books gave the artist Triin Kerge (EE), who participated in the competition with the project “Birth Day”, the opportunity to publish her photo book. NoRoutine Books thinks that “Birth Day” would fit the book format very well and here photography brings the personal, intimate and tangible planes as close as possible.

Jury: the art critic, historian and curator Adam Mazur (PL); the artistic director of Tallinn Photomonth, Kulla Laas (EE); artist and curator Paulius Petraitis (LT); art historian and critic Santa Hirša (LV); and artist and curator at the ISSP Gallery, Iveta Gabaliņa (LV).



Participant: Ruudu Ulas (EE)
Curator: Inga Brūvere (LV)
Image: Ruudu Ulas, from the series “Difficult Objects”, 2021 - 2025