For the period 2018-2020, the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art implemented the research project "Portable Landscapes". The project addressed the stories of Latvian exile and emigration starting from the 20th century to the present day.
With the involvement of a wide range of Latvian and international art institutions, researchers, curators and artists, exhibitions were held in Paris (2018), New York (2020), Gotland (2018) and Berlin (2019). The project's main event was an exhibition at the Latvian National Museum of Art, Riga (2018).
To conclude the project, a comprehensive anthology "Portable Landscapes: Art Histories of Latvian Exile" will be published in collaboration with the Berlin publishing house K. Verlag.
By tracing the lifelines of a number of artistic protagonists, this ambitious collection will explore the major centers of the Latvian diaspora – Paris, New York, West-Berlin, Montreal, and the Swedish island of Gotland. Individual stories and chapters of migration will juxtapose and map a common network situated within the broader context of twentieth-century art history and wider processes of migration and globalization.
Combining diverse contributions by scholars, writers, artists, and contemporary witnesses, the book aims to enrich the understanding of our contemporary world as informed by locally and globally intersecting historical events.
Opening details of the book will follow in 2025.
More information on the project "Portable Landscapes" available here.
Editors: Inga Lāce and Andra Silapētere.
Authors of texts and visual essays: Thomas Nail, Ingela Johansson, Mart Kuldkepp, Mika Hannula, Inga Lāce, Elisabeth Lebovici, Marcus Lutyens, Diāna Popova, Antra Priede, Bart Pushaw, Viktor Timofeev, Mai Thu Perret, Raivis Simanosns, Melissa Rachleff Burtt, Andra Silapētere, Jacob Wren.
Design: Rudy Guedj.
“Portable Landscapes: Art Histories of Latvian Exile” is supported by the State Culture Capital Foundation, Foundation Uniting, Foundation for Arts Initiatives, Goethe-Institut Riga.