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The audio walk “Unless I Move, The Earth Becomes Flatter” – the final event in the artistic research, conversation and experience series “Ecosystems of Change”

Closing the artistic research, conversation and experience series “Ecosystems of Change”, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) invites those interested to participate in an audio walk prepared by artist Inga Erdmane and geographers Anita Zariņa and Ivo Vinogradovs, “Unless I Move, The Earth Becomes Flatter”, in Garciems.


 Listen to the event description here.


Garciems, the meadows of Lake Babīte and Lake Pape, Lake Engure and other seaside lakes, Spilve meadows in Rīga, and many other waterlogged places in the region were known as “territories reclaimed from the sea” in Soviet-era periodicals. Some of these wetlands are below sea level and, in total, there are about 50,000 hectares of such artificially created areas in Latvia. Drainage of marshes and wet meadows for agricultural purposes began as early as the first Republic of Latvia and triumphed with great success during the Soviet years. Now that they have lost their agricultural function, they are almost forgotten. Find out how this affects the Baltic Sea and its ecosystem in in an audio walk in Garciems at any time, created by the artist Inga Erdmane and geographers Anita Zariņa and Ivo Vinogradovs.


 Listen to the audio walk here.


Walking route: Garciems.

Starting point: bus stop “Garciems.”


Route:

 https://www.google.com/maps/d/edit?mid=10FPakD3Xb6NY7h3j66TVlSpdoVPSVJnF&usp=sharing

Total walk length: 4 km.


How to get there:

By car: from Riga on the road P1 Riga-Carnikava. When entering Garciems, on the left side there is a bus stop 160 meters behind the road sign marking the entrance to Garciems. On the right, there is a car parking area opposite the bus stop. The train station (on the right) is also nearby.

By train or bus: stop “Garciems.”


Audio walking requires a mobile phone with internet connection and headphones. The walking pace is leisurely.


The focus of the event series “Ecosystems of Change” is on social, political and ecological change, relations between humans and the environment, as well as on nature and culture. Thus, this series of events aims to remind that we’re part of a much greater ecosystem, in which there is an unbroken exchange of information and energy, which continues to change, and therefore makes one ponder novel ecosystems, which fundamentally differ from the previous ones, due to human influence.


Artists strive to explore the complex and often paradoxical nature of change in our region, through interdisciplinary collaboration with scientists, environmental researchers, geographers, biologists, musicians, tourism and IT specialists, by tackling the aforementioned questions from critical environment and ecology perspectives.


The previous events of the series in 2021 were: “Journey to Chernivtsi” by Haralds Matulis and Liene Lāce; the multisensory experience performance “Living Memory” by Linda Boļšakova; Vika Eksta’s event “People of the Marsh”; Rasa Šmite and Raitis Šmits’ “Virtual Dinner with Scientists”. They are part of the project “Rethinking Post-socialism through Post-colonialism in the Baltics” by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, which addresses the imprints of post-socialism and post-colonialism and their echoed historical changes in our region through the prism of the current ecological crisis, environmental issues and nationalism. Curator: Ieva Astahovska.


The project is supported by the State Cultural Capital Fund programme “KultūrELPA”.


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