Eat the Future, Swallow the Toad
Action, graph, 2011
Like so many times before in our history, we are once again unhappy here in Latvia. We complain, we suffer, we emigrate. Once every hundred years we throw stones at government windows. As the poet Klāvs Elsbergs once put it, “Horror and peace reign in the world”. And then, suddenly, on 2 February 2011, deus ex machina appeared in the guise of the Arabic TV news channel Al Jazeera English, to announce: “The Baltic nation of Latvia is blessed with some of the most beautiful forests in the world.” The world learns that we, on the outskirts of the EU, have a treasure of global magnitude – our forests, which we so irresponsibly squander. Perhaps desert-dwelling Arabs hold woodlands in higher regard than we who “live in trees and subsist on mushrooms”?
Private conversations confirm a growing impression of people seeing too many forests destroyed. Gradually, since 02/02/2011, a snowball effect has been building in the public space – news and opinions on the fate of Latvian forests are showing up in the media with increasing frequency. But I still wonder would we ever have woken up without the outside influence of deus ex machina, or would our observations have remained at the level of kitchen table conversations – as usual? Would we have swallowed the toad of seeing (our?) country expend its future resources on the current crisis, one that is so short-lived compared to the lifespan of a tree? But people do need to eat right now, immediately. Marie Antoinette is said to have pronounced: “If they have no bread, let them eat cake!” At the festival we shall eat cakes like forests, and in our private conversations we shall wonder: What is it all about, and who calls the tunes?
Artist's Bio:
Artist, scenographer and art review writer Izolde Cēsniece holds an MFA from the Scenography Department of the Latvian Academy of Art (2001). She has designed sets for theatre productions, and since 1998 has been participating in exhibitions and art projects with her performances and installations. Cēsniece has taken part in SURVIVAL KIT-1/-2 (2009, 2010); exhibition 6. elements / The 6th Element (2003), Transvisit (Denmark, 2002); art project re:publika / re:public (2003); exhibition Daba.Vide.Cilvēks / Nature. Environment.Man at Arsenāls Exhibition Hall (2004); exhibition Ainavas laboratorija / Landscape Laboratory in Pedvāle (2000); exhibition Personīgais un Sociālais / The Personal and the Social at Arsenāls Exhibition Hall (2000), Rauma Biennale (1998) a.o.