Contemporary art festival Survival Kit 12
Curated by Övül Ö. Durmușoğlu and Joanna Warsza
September 3rd - October 31st, 2021
In Riga memorial museums
Graphic design: Reflect
Timeline
Since Matīss from Mālpils, an 85 year old tenant farmer from Kniediņu Manor, was sentenced to 20 pairs of switches by Tērbata High Court for running with werewolves, 330 years
Since more than 700 million people watched Lady Diana and Prince Charles’ wedding on TV, 40 years
Since chemist Florence Wall in the USA invented the first anti aging cream, 94 years
Since people’s names, titles and imprints on history are no longer important, 1 year
Since Iceland’s Eyjafjallajokull volcano flashed briefly in the conversational languages of travellers in Northern Europe, 11 years
Since an archer’s arrow felled Sotekle’s elder Rūsiņš at Dabreļa Castle during a conversation with Bertold, the Lord of Cēsis, 809 years
Since the oldest known clay dish, 20,000 years
Since, barely fed and tossed by waves for 48 days and nights, 29 Latvian refugees stepped off the 20 metre long Grundel in the US port of Provincetown, 73 years
Since the first refrigerator was built in London, 187 years
Since I became “a person whose father has died”, which is completely different to being “ a person without a father”, 3 years
Since dad took off his glasses while stacking firewood to diffuse the monotony of work into misty uncertainty, 29 years
Since dad gave me his final present – a work tool with which to trim bushes, 12 years
Since my great-grandfather’s sister Alma received a spanking from her parents at the age of 15 for taking part in the 1905 revolution in Riga, on the thin ice of the Daugava, on the way home from school, 116 years.
Since Latvia’s first millionaire Augusts Dombrovskis earned his first million, 121 years.
Since I received my first wages of 140 lats as the Vidzeme reporter for LETA news agency, 21 years
Since a speck of gold discovered in marten shit turned out to be quite valuable, 13 years
Since the start of Latvia’s financial and government crisis, 13 years
Since the end, 11 years (it is hard to say how long this has continued mentally)
Since Rainis unexpectedly stumbled on the steps at Majori and died soon afterwards, 92 years
Since Veidenbaums organised an almighty dust-up at the Tartu student tavern “Magistri”, which for some unknown reason became known as the “Cabbage Riot”, 127 years
Since a meteorite fell on Saaremaa, destroying the nearby castle next to the village of Kaali. As late as the 19th century, pieces of the meteorite were still being found by poorly educated Estonians, which they ground into powder and swallowed in the belief that this would protect them from the power of Satan, 3,545 years
Since the sense of security, which we were afforded by the Absolute Law of Physics, was destroyed by the events, which were initiated by the hypothesis presented by physicist Max Planck in an unseemly article that energy could move not as a wave, but rather in quants – chaotic packs of energy, 121 years
Since people were born into the world for whom Pluto is in Capricorn, in order to decisively clean our collective subconscious of the superfluous sometime soon, 13 years. Meanwhile power in the world continues to concentrate in the hands of my generation (Pluto in Libra, 1972-1984). The generation, whose obsession with the opinion of others and the mental fogginess resulting from it, I had grown tired of long before Since the sense of security, which we were afforded by the Absolute Law of Physics, was destroyed by the events, which were initiated by the hypothesis presented by physicist Max Planck in an unseemly article that energy could move not as a wave, but rather in quants – chaotic packs of energy, 121 years.
Since we’ve been trying to recover and get our heads straight after the formulation of Quantum Theory, 100 years.
Since God’s particle turned out to merely be the Higgs boson, 9 years.
Since it has no longer been possible to walk along the tracks to Mērsrags or Mazirbe. The tracks have been replaced by other tracks, other speeds and other villages, 52 years.
Since there’s not enough time to go around rapids, 61 years.
Since Guattari and Deleuze first put forward the theory that capitalism has more to do with schizophrenia (universally chaotic double morality, hidden and isolated rules) than with anything which we usually consider to be normal and logical and just, 49 years. However every morning this comparison continues to surprise me (us) anew.