From top left side: Linda Boļšakova, Līva Dudareva, Vika Eksta, Ieva Kraule-Kūna, Maija Kurševa, Līga Spunde, Sabīne Vernere un Daniela Vētra
Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) is pleased to announce the eight Latvia based artists participating at the “Peer-to-Peer” Programme 2021: Linda Boļšakova, Līva Dudareva, Viktorija Eksta, Ieva Kraule-Kūna, Maija Kurševa, Līga Spunde, Sabīne Vernere un Daniela Vētra.
Through the open-call, 34 competitive applications were received from artists based in Latvia. The great interest confirms the need for such a program and the aim of the LCCA is to continue this initiative in the future, so that artists from Latvia have the opportunity to participate in the international dialogue, receive constructive feedback about their artistic practice and build a network with contemporary art professionals in Europe.
We congratulate the selected artists and look forward to collaborate during the “Peer-to-Peer” Program, that will take place in May, June, September and October 2021.
Linda Boļšakova has mastered a course in art and philosophy with a first-level highest award in Scotland (2017), having previously completed a course in photography at Edinburgh College. In 2018, she mastered a performance art course in Riga. The artist's solo exhibition “Off spring” in the gallery “Alma” (2020) received an expert nomination for the Purvītis Award. Linda Bolshakova works with various media, mostly focusing on performance, installation and photography. In her creative work, artist approaches nature from a perspective that has nothing to do with might or negligibility. As a result of in-depth research, the artist focuses on man's relationship with nature and creates parallels between human and plant bodies. The experience of nature becomes the experience of her body and, in place of hierarchical relations, the artist strives for interconnectedness and unity, and this fusion is transformed into a poetic vision. Linda's goal is to show this commitment and develop a stronger sense of belonging to a common ecosystem. Her works are characterized by laconicism and simplicity of forms, emphasizing the changing nature of materials and resembling 3D haiku.
Liva Dudareva has been actively participating in the international art duo METASITU (from 2014 till the end of 2019) and has been its cofounder (together with Eduardo Kassin). Currently artist is in the transition process from collective to individual practices and develops her artistic view with an in-depth focus on crystal cognition and inspiration from man-made stones (plastiglomerate as one example) and geological layers that form the Earth's crust. Her works explore the human relations with the Material World, especially with mineral resources, from a wide range of perspectives, including myths, speculation, stereotypes and scientific discoveries. Through sculpture, installation and text, research-based works strike a balance between visual art, geology, architecture and geopolitics.
Vika Eksta is an artist and educator who uses photography, moving image, performance and audiovisual archives in her work. In her long-term projects, Vika combines the documentary and fictional. She has studied photography at Andrejs Grants' studio and EFTI photography school in Madrid, and obtained a master's degree in visual communication at the Art Academy of Latvia. Vika is the winner of the ADC Young Guns, FK Portfolio and Riga Photography Biennial awards for young Baltic photographers, and has been nominated for the Purvītis Prize. Since 2014, she has participated in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad, including at the Latvian National Museum of Art (2020), kim? Contemporary Art Centre (2019), Gallery Alma (2019), ISSP Gallery (2018), Kaunas Photography Gallery (2017). Her work is held in the collections of Latvian National Museum of Art, Latvian Museum of photography and private collections.
Ieva Kraule-Kūna has studied Visual Communication at the Latvian Academy of Arts and obtained a master's degree from the Sandberg Institute in Amsterdam. The artist mainly creates sculptural objects using various materials (ceramics, stone, metal, wicker, clay, etc.) accompanying them with short stories where absurd adventures of fictional characters mix with skewed interpretations of historical facts. In her works, the artist refers to the remnants of the Soviet era in public space, human thinking, crafts and fetishism, in search of personal and collective aesthetic codes. Ieva Kraule-Kūna co-runs an artist-run gallery “LOW” and has been one of the founders of the gallery "427" or “Four To Seven” (both in Riga). In 2017, she got "Kim?" residency award and spent three months in a residency in Gasworks, London. Her works are included in the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art.
Maija Kurševa has obtained a master's degree at Visual Communication Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts and currently holds teaching composition and screen printing there. In 2017, the artist founded the non-commercial gallery “LOW” and created the gallery's exhibition program (2017-2019). She has founded the Riga Zine Festival that is dedicated to informal publishing or self-publishing and has been the curator of the festival's exhibitions (2016, 2018), as well as founded the artists' association “Popper Publishing” and leading collective projects (2012-2018) with like-minded people. She participates in exhibitions since 2004 in Latvia and abroad. Maija Kurševa works with a wide range of media, often combining them. Her exhibitions in recent years have featured installations, spatial structures, combined with moving images, graphics, drawings and sculptures. The artist's ideas often revolve around personal reflections on the process of creating the work of art, the subjection of space to the idea, using visually laconic means of expression. Despite the extensive use of media, drawing has always been the bedrock of the artist's ideas and also functions as a way of recording everyday thoughts.
Līga Spunde has graduated from the Visual Communication Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts with a diploma thesis project “Pārgājiens” (Hike), which has won the recognition of the “Startpoint Prize 2016” jury as one of the three best graduate projects of European art schools. She has participated in several exhibitions and art projects both in Latvia and abroad. The artist often creates her works as multimedia installations, in which personal stories are closely intertwined with deliberately constructed fiction. By creating a wide but at the same time subtle thematic network, her works include references to different times and symbols. The precision of interpretation and the newly acquired context become an extension of personal experience, reaching to well-known truths. Mostly the content of the work determines the physical form of the conception, so the installations are made in a variety of materials and media.
Sabīne Vernere obtained a master's degree from the Department of Painting of the Visual Arts Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts, while studying supplemented her knowledge at the Royal Academy of Arts in Zagreb and the Royal Academy in Antwerp. In 2016, she participated in the exhibition cycle of the foundation Art Needs Space "#Blumbergs. Infinity'' exhibiting her bachelor's thesis "Shame-less". She has participated in several group exhibitions in Latvia and Europe, and in the autumn of 2020 has independently organized a large-scale solo exhibition at 40 Brīvības Street in Riga. Sabine is currently working at the JCE (Jeune Création Européenne) residence in Paris, preparing for upcoming projects - participation in group exhibitions and a new solo exhibition.
Daniela Vētra has studied contemporary circus art at L’Escola de Circ Rogelio Rivel in Barcelona, Spain and clothing design at the Riga Secondary School of Design and Art. Daniela is a live performance and installation artist working in an interdisciplinary field between performance art, installation art and experimental theatre. The central element in her works is the body, which during the performance is subjected to long-term, cyclical, ritual activities with the aim of changing the state of consciousness and checking the limits of the body's possibilities. The artist's works have been shown in performance festivals, galleries museums and art residencies in Latvia, Estonia, Spain, the Netherlands, Georgia and Finland.
The "Peer-to-Peer" Programme is a joint initiative connecting artists and art workers across Europe for professional discussions and network building. The programme acts as a response to the needs declared by artists to dialogue with art professionals across disciplines and regions. These individuals are carefully matched by each organisation, who will offer a shortlist specifically tailored with each artist in mind. The artist will determine the final match-up for each of their meetings.
The programme is co-organised by the: Danish Art Foundation, Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art, Flanders Arts Institute, Frame Contemporary Art Finland, IASPIS – The Swedish Arts Grants Committee’s International Programme for Visual and Applied Art, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Mondriaan Fund, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OCA), and Swiss Arts Council Pro Helvetia.