Luīze Rukšāne (1995) received a bachelor’s degree in audiovisual and media art from the Latvian Academy of Arts. Louise has been creating and participating in exhibitions since 2016, works in various visual art media, works a lot with the graphite drawing technique, organizes her own and her contemporaries’ exhibitions. As part of the residency, the artist will search for scraps of cotton fabric that are no longer needed by the residents of Pāvilosta with the help of advertisements, which she will then use to create an installation in the room, thus continuing to work with the theme of tangible and intangible heritage, which she started in her last solo exhibition.

Frederikke Jul Vedelsby (born in Copenhagen, DK) is working across drawing, text, and time-based media. In her work, she is accessing expanded states of consciousness, suggesting irregularity, and addressing the limitations of understanding itself.

Her drawings acknowledge somatic experience- and knowledge exchange that happens beyond her intellect and across bodies and time. In her 16mm films, the people with whom she is filming practice awareness, as opposition to a society ruled by capital, one-directionality, and efficiency. The filming is a collaborative process with the individuals featured. Both with and without a camera, they are in conversation, investigating extraordinary vision and the connections between things.

Her recent solo exhibitions include “See Girls” at ERGO (GR) and Precious Us at Matteo Cantarella (DK).

At PAiR, Frederikke will work on a new video drawing- and text-based work, involving her body, and the landscape in which PAiR is located.

Ann Mirjam Vaikla‘s artistic practice as a curator, artist and scenographer, is focused on the intertwinement of climate justice; non-human species/bodies; and processes of decolonization. These topics have been addressed in several of her previous curatorial projects, including the 8th Artishok Biennial Botanical Witnesses (2022) at the Tallinn Botanic Garden; Point of No Return. Attunement of Attention (2021) at Narva Art Residency (NART). She holds a BA in Scenography from the Norwegian Theatre Academy and an MA in Culture and Arts from the Novia University in Finland. She is currently obtaining her postmasters at the Decolonizing Architecture Advanced Studies (DAAS) programme at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm (2022-24). She is the co-curator of the residency cycle KORDON LAB on Food and Energy (2023-24). Since 2023 she is working as the curator of contemporary art at the Kumu Art Museum (Art Museum of Estonia).

During her residency at PAiR Ann Mirjam Vaikla will focus on writing her curatorial essay for the international group exhibition They Began To Talk that will open in February 2025 at the Contemporary Art Gallery in Kumu Art Museum.

The exhibition They Began To Talk, co-curated with Hanna Laura Kaljo, regards what it feels like to be a body in an era of climate change and environmental inequality. The exhibition conceives of the ‘body’ as an expanded concept, which encompasses humans, other living beings and the ecosystems of which they are a part: from rivers and mountainous terrains to coastal areas and celestial bodies. It makes reference to the idea that the boundary of our human body is not the skin that envelops it, rather we extend beyond it, by way of relationship to what surrounds us. The exhibition observes this blurred border between what is ‘within’ and what is ‘without’ through the phenomenon of ‘environmental trauma’—trauma caused by abrupt and rapid environmental changes—characterised by silence. They Began To Talk brings the conversational ‘body’ to the fore, with a focus on Estonia and the wider Nordic-Baltic region.

(Kristė Stankevičiūtė, b. 1993, Vilnius) obtained her BA in London Middlesex University in 2015. In 2009, she became one of the first Lithuanians to start a fashion and style blog, Feed Your Fashion Animal, and has been actively participating in the fashion world for over a decade now. After graduating, Kristė rediscovered herself in graphic design and started expanding her clientele by creating linear drawings Inspired by her experiences in Los Angeles, where she was introduced to previously unknown ideas of light and architecture, Kriste Stan fell in love with Californian culture and lifestyle and embarked on new forms of expression, particularly painting on canvas. Black and white compositions were then enriched with colour, strict geometric shapes and stains. In her creative process, the artist pays major attention to colour and the relationship between lines and stains. Somewhat paradoxically, even when depicting emotionally heavy narratives, her works are based on different impressions of lightness and colour. The canvases become stop-motion shots, filling up with silhouettes suspended in moments of love, despair and fury. Seemingly comfortably curled up, the bodies lean against the ceiling, not fitting into the rooms they have delineated themselves.

About the project

“Since my school days, I have been interested in the extinction and depopulation of the authentic Lithuanian countryside and its villages. By developing my project, I aim to produce paintings that speak about the antipode between the countryside and the city, nature, and technology. At the centre of each artwork, there are only traces of the disappearing human figure, and its contours are left alongside the symbol of the countryside, the woven basket. It is deformed, symbolising the loss of traditions, alienation, signs of an ageing society, rejection of the past, and idealisation of the future. Next to the basket, footprints of urban glamour could be found, references to our everyday lives touched by industrialization and other social processes.”

Katrīna Čemme (b.1989) Riga and presently residing in Vienna, Austria, is a contemporary artist whose oeuvre resides at the confluence of abstract sculpture, autonomous aesthetics, and site-specific installations. Her works, placed directly on floors, walls, or within passageways, transcend the visible and imperceptible aspects of their surroundings, harnessing architectural elements, light conditions, and the site’s intrinsic characteristics. Each project serves as a prism to contemplate the emotive, corporeal, and relational dimensions of space. Informed by cultural theory
and material functionality, Čemme employs techniques such as laser printing, adorning her sculptural compositions with open and closed crates, addressing issues of body, and environment.

Laimdota Malle is actively working across varied media, including drawing, printing, sculpture, and animated images in order to create installations with a specific interest in questioning meanings of collective and personal experiences. Using various techniques, she is recording impressions through copying on different surfaces and materialities and recreating images from photographs, in order to build a collection of pieces of everything around. Through her own experiences, combined with the need to research, understand, and collect, she creates metaphorical stories that reveal hitherto unknown landscapes and realities

Ana Tarashvili is a visual artist living in Rustavi, Georgia. She has a Bachelor’s degree in visual arts from Free University of Tbilisi (2023). Ana attended International Summer Academy of Fine Arts in Salzburg, Austria (2023) and participated in residency programs by Ria Keburia Foundation, Ambassadori Kachreti, Georgia (2021), and “Art and Freedom/Civil Rights in Time of Crisis” residency by The Friedrich Naumann Foundation for Freedom in Art-Villa Garikula, Georgia (2020).

She plays with and against the images of her reconstructive memory as a main material. She recalls and alters those dim memories, often presented as space and interior, as a way of understanding herself and the physical world that she inhabits.

Chin Meng-Hsuan is from Taiwan. Her paintings and drawings evolve around the ambiguity of space, time, and everyday life. In abstracting visual and verbal elements from various encounters, she explores the relationship between thinking process and bodily movement intrinsic to the painterly practice.

Stefan Klampfer is currently based in Vienna, Austria. He has studied sculpture at the Academy of Fine Arts Vienna, but he likes to see his practice independent of a specific media. His works are often related to the context of their making or their appearance. He is interested in fundamental questions on the process of making art, investigating borders of art and non-art.

Dzelde Mierkalne (1997), based in Riga, Latvia, is a multidisciplinary artist with a background in printmaking. With great reverence for technique and process, Dzelde aims to overthrow technique-related artistic standards to create something new and find its place in today’s context. While reflecting on the existential fears of “world destruction”, mortality salience, and death anxiety through the lens of today’s post-irony and humour, she likes to play around with the syntheses of drawing and form.

Girts graduated from the Contemporary Dance Art Program of the Latvian Academy of Culture in 2021 and in 2016 obtained a Bachelor of Social Sciences degree in Political Science, graduating from Riga Stradiņš University. Girts is a stage and performance artist who mainly works in the field of contemporary dance as a performer (“Es eju ārā dārzā” Quadrifrons, 2022) and choreographer (“Mums” in Gertrudes ielas theater, 2021). He is an active member of the contemporary dance association “SIXTH” (“Remember me” Dirty Deal Teatro, 2023) and the Council of Choreographers Association. Has worked together with Elīna Gediņa, Rudolph Gediņs, Jana Jacuka, Elīna Gaitjukeviča, Elmārs Senkovs, Elīza Dombrovska, Jānis Balodis. At the beginning of 2023, as part of voluntary work, he spent time with seniors at the SARC “Rūjienas Senioru māja”, and in the summer he organized movement and rhythm classes for children with autistic spectrum disorders in the “Latvijas Autisma apvienība”. In 2023/2024 plans to spend the academic year studies in Pamplona, ​​Spain at the choreography center “La Faktoria”. In creative practice, he is interested in self-exploration, sexuality and gender.

Marta Madara Grantiņa (2000) uses performance and works in various media (scenography, installation, painting). Through existing or self-created objects, she plays with the hierarchy between material, material and natural, human matter.

lindabolsakova.com

Linda Boļšakova a multidisciplinary, research-based artist working in the
fields of installation, performance, photography and creative writing. Her
practice explores human relations with the environment and draws parallels
between human embodiment and other material embodiments, especially those
of plants. It aims to expose these connections and participate in
developing a stronger sense of belonging to ecosystems and to the larger
community of beings that mutually inhabit our planet.

She has recently returned from Scotland where she graduated from
Contemporary art practice and Philosophy course, prior to that graduating
from photography course at Edinburgh College. Since, Linda has participated
in various group shows and international conferences as well as residencies
and summer schools. Currently, she is studying performance at Latvian
Performance Art Centre.

www.anastasiasosunova.com/

Anastasia Sosunova is a visual artist living in Vilnius. Sosunova
has a Bachelor’s degree in Graphic art and a Master’s degree in Sculpture
from the Vilnius Academy of Arts and has also participated in Rupert
Alternative Education Program. She has participated in exhibitions in
Europe and the US, exhibiting her work in both artistic institutions and
non-institutional urban and natural locations. Her work translates between
scales, manipulating personal stories and subtle material gestures,
following through their entanglements in vaster tales. Anastasia uses
video, installation, sculpture and graphic art to reflect on notions of the
“alien” that occupy space in our everyday lives. Often this is a practice
of noticing and knowing intimately our contexts, and the ways in which we
interact with them.

Anastasia’ s residency is partially supported by the Lithuanian Culture Council.

As a scholar and a curator of exhibitions and events, Rana Öztürk is involved in both the historical/critical study of exhibitions and curating as a practice. She has completed her Ph.D. with her thesis Narratives of Global Modernity: International Contemporary Art Exhibitions as Places for Mapping Relational Geographies at the National College of Art and Design, Dublin in 2015. She has also been a research scholar at the Graduate School of Creative Arts and Media (GradCAM) throughout her doctoral studies. She recently curated Carpe Noctem, a solo show by Aslı Narin at Milli Reassürans Art Gallery, Istanbul (2018). In her curatorial work, she is particularly interested in the notions of time and place and potentialities of their incorporation into curatorial and artistic practice. The historical and geographic terrains of particular locations have influenced the scopes of the past exhibitions she curated. These include We All Live on the Same Sea at Sirius Art Centre, Ireland (2014), Temporarily Shelved as part of the 3rd International Sinop Biennial in Turkey (2010) (co-curated with Vaari Claffey), and Slow Space Fast Pace as part of Cork Art Trail, Ireland (2007). She is currently working on an exhibition that will be a follow-up to Repetition & Cycle Talks and Performance Series I & II, which she organized with Sinem Dişli at SALT Galata, Istanbul in October 2017 and March 2018. Rana currently lives in İstanbul and works as an assistant professor at İstinye University.

Jana Kukaine is a researcher, art critic and curator, who is interested in gender as critical analysis tool. Women’s rights activist and lecturer at the Art Academy of Latvia. Author of monography  “Daiļās mātes. Sieviete. Ķermenis. Subjektivitāte” (“Beautiful mothers. Woman. Body. Subjectivity” (Riga: Neputns, 2016).

clementineedwards.com/

Joannie Baumgärtner is an artist based in Berlin, Germany and holds an undergraduate degree in Sculpting, Fine Arts and Art Mediation. Their aesthetic practice is situated on the fringes of installation, sound-art, performance and poetry, whilst theoretical writing is used as both, a device for artistic research as well as an alternative space to articulate outcomes of artistic knowledge production. Within their work, human culture is understood as technological apparatus that constructs and situates normative subjectivity through methods of spatio-temporalisation. Formal constraint, identity and single-subject concepts are actively degenerated, letting a play of deviations argue for a solidarity that grows beyond normative boundaries.

Clementine Edwards is an Australian artist based in Rotterdam, with a masters from the Dutch Art Institute (DAI). In 2019 she is artist-in-residence at Roodkapje, Rotterdam.
Clementine is engaged with the idea of ‘material as kin’, which emerges from her research into the material traces of social experience. This thinking expands on her work around complicating the post-traumatic state. She is also working on a long-term research project titled World-making in Pain with Joannie Baumgärtner, and will focus on this project during the residency period at PAiR. Clementine’s studio practice looks like a large amount of precarious assemblages and sculptures, DIY films, peculiar jewellery, and intimate installations.

vanessagravenorblog.wordpress.com/

Vanessa Gravenor is an artist and a writer living in Berlin, DE. Since 2016, she has been working on the topic of terrorism, the War on Terror, and proxy wars. Some exhibitions include Scan the Difference, VBKÖ, Vienna, AT (2019); Mutterzunge, Kino Babylon, Berlin, DE (2018); solo screening On the Biopolitical Image at the U-jazdowski Castle, AIR laboratory, Warsaw, PL (2016); and On Off Shore at the Museum of Photography, Berlin, DE (2016). Upcoming presentations include Up in Arms at Kunstraum Bethanien with nGbk, Berlin DE and at the Transregional Academy in Beirut, LB.

She has published art criticism with ArtSlant, ArtMargins, n.paradoxa, Temporary Art Review, Chicago’s International Journal The Seen, Sleek Magazine, Bad at Sports, and Blok Magazine, among others.

Jacquelyn Davis is an art critic, independent curator, creative writer,
editor and publisher based in Stockholm but working internationally
(current focus: Scandinavia and the Baltics). She is the founder of two
curatorial web platforms ‘valeveil’ and ‘The Lottery Project,’ and her
critical writing has appeared in arts & culture publications such as
Artforum, Frieze, Art Agenda, Art Review, Arterritory, Paletten and
Kunstkritikk—among others. Davis’s creative writing has frequented journals
and DIY publishing projects such as Reptilhjärnan, Fence Magazine, Drunken
Boat, eohippus labs and [out of nothing]. Previous projects include curated
exhibitions (public and online), events and texts for visual artists,
organizations, institutions and spaces in Los Angeles, Stockholm, Vilnius,
Riga—and elsewhere. She was the BICI arts writer fellow at Banff Centre for
Arts and Creativity (2018), Bergen Kunsthall writer-in-residence (2019) and
recipient of numerous awards.

Evarts Melnalksnis has studied theory and management of culture at Latvian Academy of Culture. He has acquired the profession of musical theatre dramaturge in Master studies at Hamburg University of Music & Theatre, while being awarded DAAD (German Academic Exchange Service) scholarship. He has gained experience as dramaturgy and directing assistant in “brutWien” in Vienna, the Ruhrtriennale (“Alceste”, “Die Fremden”, director J. Simons), Stuttgart Opera (“The Queen of Spades”, director J. Wieler), and Berlin State Opera (“La Douce”, director A. Bergmann). He was awarded scholarship of young music theatre professionals program “Musiktheater heute” (2016 – 2018).

As dramaturge he has worked on the production “Membra. Als ich im Sterben lag” with the music of D. Buxtehude and the first performance of “The Night of the Sea Urchins” in Hamburg State Opera, where he also participated as a singer. Founder of the theatre troupe KVADRIFRONS and dramaturge for the group performances  “Pavasaris” (“Spring”), “Brīnuma skartie” (“Wonderers”) and “Zvēri ir nemierīgi” (“The beasts are restless”) with the music of D. Shostakovich. Curator for the five exhibition cycle of KVADRIFRONS in Riga Circus elephant stables. He focuses on postdramatic theatre strategies, contemporary music theatre, interdisciplinary and international cooperation. Evarts Melnalksnis regularly publishes articles on contemporary theatre processes. He is guest editor of the topic “contemporary music theatre” in the magazine “Teātra Vēstnesis”.

www.keiukrikmann.com/

Keiu Krikmann is a writer, curator and translator. Since 2013 she’s been running the project space Konstanet. From 2016–2018 she was the programme manager at the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Gallery. As a writer and translator Keiu mainly works with texts exploring art, design, architecture and occasionally fiction. She is also a board member and programme manager of the Tallinn Applied Art Triennial and guest lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Miķelis Putniņš (born 1991) joined the Latvian music community in 2016, when he published his first album called “Ogle” (“Coal”) together with his project band “Ezeri”. Since then Miķelis has participated in various projects as guitarist, song writer, arranger, and vocalist. He regularly performs together with Vladislavs Nastavševs; they have created a joint concert “Lēnās Dejas” (Slow dances); since 2018 he is also the accompanying guitarist in the band “Instrumenti” and has cooperated with Jānis Šipkēvics on several projects (Gaismas Raksti, Mīlestības Vārdā. 18+) as well as with many other musicians.

In his music Miķelis is seeking beauty and euphony, as well as innovation and untamed musical solutions.

salmane.co.uk/

“I am fascinated by the variable boundary between truth and fiction. The stories that tell of past events and that are told by eyewitnesses are sometimes embedded in subjectivity or even fiction. And vice versa – fictional stories can sometimes reveal situations, persons and essence of an event better than facts.
My works are often inspired by a certain actual event, which I interpret during the creative process in terms of shape and content or even interlace with seemingly unrelated facts. My purpose is to create works with emotional truth.”

Anna Salmane mostly works with photography, transformed objects and installations.  Salmane has acquired Master of Philosophy at University of Latvia (2007) and Bachelor of Arts at Goldsmiths College, London (2014). Salmane participates in exhibitions since 2001, and she has had several personal exhibitions in Latvia and UK. In 2017 she received Purvītis Award for the work called „Dziesma” (“Song”) together with Krišs Salmanis and Kristaps Pētersons.

https://dacevigante.lv/

Dace Vīgante was Born in 1970. She dreamt of becoming a writer since childhood. In 2016 debuted in prose with collection of stories “Ledus apelsīns” (“Ice orange”). In 2018 Dace Vīgante published a collection of stories “Tad redzēs” (“We will see”).

Currently working on her first novel.

www.edithdekyndt.be

Edith Dekyndt works with phenomena at the threshold of the visible and the invisible. Developing her approach out of a minimalist tradition, she hones in on singular, discrete movements, which are then isolated, magnified or repeated. A narrative builds around this close attention, which then takes the form of film, performance or installation. For Dekyndt, “each situation acts as the trigger for a process of “contexture”, providing an opportunity for both sensory and mental investment in an environment”.

Her simple gestures, like her study of surface cast on paper through the minerals of the Dead Sea, the methodical cleaning of a monumental statue, or the silk canvas worn to fine threads by a cowboy’s whip, speak to the humble, the reverent, and the ritualistic. Balanced between the melancholic and the scientific, they redirect our focus to the subtle presences of everyday life and invite us to meditate on the slow process of transformation in the world around us.

Edith Dekyndt has participated in following exhibitions: The Black, The White, The Blue, Kunsthaus Hamburg, Germany (2019); Viva Arte Viva, 57th edition of the Venice Biennial, Italy (2017); Play Time, Toledo Museum, Ohio, United-States (2015); The Importance of Being… Contemporary art from Belgium in Latin-America, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes, Havana, Cuba (2015); Art Of Its Own Making, Pulitzer Foundation for the Arts, Saint Louis, United-States (2014); Blue Times, Kunsthalle, Vienna (2014); More Light, 5th Moscow Biennial (2013); Agnosia, Witte de With, Rotterdam (2009).

Henriks Eliass Zēgners (1995) – poet.

Henriks Elias Zegners is a poet, laureate of the Ojārs Vācieša prize and organizer of cultural events. During the residency, he plans to work on the dramaturgical text for Kristīne Brīniņa’s play “Gaišās naktis” – a production based on documentary material about three prisoners in Liepāja prison, which will premiere in December 2023.

Tobias M. Draeger studied Film and Physical Theatre Studies as well as Contemporary Dance at the Vienna Conservatory and at SEAD (Salzburg Experimental Academy of Dance), received a Master of Performing Arts at the Icelandic Academy of Arts in Reykjavik and a training in Osteopathy at IAO Gent. His artistic career has been shaped by close international collaborations with Quan Bui Qnoc/Les Ballets C de la B, Kopergieterey/Kabinet K. and the Dutch osteopath Erik Horsten.

Characteristic for Tobias M. Draeger’s working method is his unconventional view of artistic concepts and choreographic structures in combination with his osteopathic knowledge.

Choreographic collaborations include: Quan Bui Qnoc/Les Ballets C de la B (BE/VIE), Markus Schleinzer (AT), Cornelia Luthi (CH), Helena Waldmann (DE), Kristel van Issum/T.R.A.S.H Company (NL) Philippe Reira/Superamas (FR/BE), ifhuman CIE (BE), Mia Lawrence (US). He gives workshops is a guest teachers internationally, including at the Film Academy Vienna, Latvian Academy of Culture, performance lab by Mia Lawrence (Munich), Icelandic Dance Company, among others.
With his company draeger u.Co., he has been developing his own choreographic works since 2012, in which dance, theatre, osteopathy and object manipulation intertwine. He also acts internationally as an outside eye and physical coach for various companies and artists.

After studying art and cinema in Paris, and collaborating for 12 years on sets and festivals, Carmith Shaï embarked on a second career and became a clinical art therapist with a degree from Lesley University (Cambridge USA). She works with various populations, children, adults and seniors, in private practice, in hospitals and in medico-social settings. In her practice, she uses visual and tactile art materials and guides people in engaging creative art processes working with the resulting works of art to foster transformation in individuals.

Her personal artistic practice is essentially printmaking and artist books. Carmith has chosen to live a sustainable life in Portugal. Her work lately is oriented towards nature-based eco art-therapy, including elements of nature and natural environment to her practice. During her residency at PAiR, Carmith will keep exploring the relationship to nature and creativity in the light of the Latvian culture.

Through her artistic work Darta is interested in geological observations and changes. She creates landscapes with futuristic forms, questioning the temporality of natural, mechanical, and manual creation. She is interested in the haptic aspect, being able to feel through sight, with which she wants to define what space of touch could be. During this residency Darta is planning to continue her research and to work on new sculptural projects. By experimenting in small scale, the approach of geo engineering as a solution for climate change, Darta will imagine a future landscape.

Darta graduated from Beaux-Arts de Paris in 2019 and has participated in exhibitions in France, Ireland, Japan, TOPOS sculpture festival in Saint-Denis, L’eau et les rêves at the Palais des Beaux-Arts in Paris, tesselles//pixels at the Louvre Museum, The Whole and the Part in Tokyo.

Anna Dzērve is a young Latvian photographer working with nude photography. Her works could be called erotic and sensual, although personal traumas and experiences are often behind aesthetic exhibitionism. Anna graduated from the Riga Secondary School of Design and Art and the Graphics Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts. She has been engaged in art for more than 10 years, and in recent years – in analog photography. Anna is a winner of Riga Photobiennal and VV Foundation award for her work “I’m glad he died”.

From May 24 to June 23, Anna will work on a new art project at the Pāvilosta artists’ residence, and from July 8, the photos will be publicly available in the PAiR gallery. The artist’s works often touch on the topics of her personal traumas and a woman’s place in the world, so the only requirements for the model are to be born as a woman (due to the aforementioned traumas, photo sessions for men are offered only in exceptional cases), but the main requirement is an interest in her dark and feminine side, willingness to stand in front of the camera naked to find out this side. Almost all the photo sessions organized by the artist over the past 3 years have taken place in her bedroom, mostly directly in bed. This summer, the artist will step out of her comfort zone and look for models for photo sessions in Pāvilosta – the photo sessions could take place both indoors and outdoors, but definitely in the dark, because Anna’s means of artistic expression is not only the analog camera, but also the projector, which is the main source of light in all in her photos.

Sara Koluchova, a Czech contemporary dancer and choreographer based in Germany has started work on the research project “Portrait of…” where she explores cultural identity in bodily expression throughout Europe. She collects individual movement stories and intends to portray the diversity of cultural imprint in the body. She invites locals for personal interviews to exchange about the topic of cultural identity. The „Portrait of…collection Latvia” research is accompanied by the Latvian dance dramaturge Modris Opelts and is supported by the Dance Research NRW – NRW KULTURsekretariat.

United States native Stephen Webb is a composer and interdisciplinary art maker based in Helsinki, Finland. His work explores surreal abstraction, placing materials outside of their assumed past, present and future. Through a variety of genres, Webb creates sardonic and melancholic worlds that distort expectation, leaving audiences in vaguely familiar landscapes.

Webb holds degrees in composition from the Sibelius Academy and the Chicago College of Performing Arts, as well as studies in live art from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago and at the Theatre Academy of Helsinki. 

American-born pianist Robert Fleitz finished his BM and MM at the Juilliard School in New York City, studying with Hung-Kuan Chen and Julian Martin. He made his Carnegie Hall Debut in October 2021, and has performed in 25 states and 17 countries throughout the world, including at Concerthall Latvija and the Metropolitan Museum of Art, among others. Robert recently received the John Cage Award in Halberstadt, the Pro Musicis International Award, and was the champion of the Sansusī Musical Battle series, as well as having won the JVLMA Year Award in 2022.

VIKA EKSTA (1987) is a Latvian artist and teacher. Vika combines documentary and fictitious messages in her works, working with photography, moving images and archival materials. Studied photography with Andrejs Grant and EFTI photo school in Madrid, obtained a master’s degree in visual communication at the Latvian Academy of Arts. Vika is the winner of ADC Young Guns, FK Portfolio and Riga Photography Biennale award for young Baltic photographers, nominated for Purvīša award. Since 2014, she has participated in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad, for example in ISSP Gallery, Kaunas Photography Gallery, Alma Gallery, participated in group exhibitions in the Latvian National Art Museum, Kim? At the Center for Contemporary Art and elsewhere. Vika’s works are included in the Latvian National Art Museum, the Latvian Museum of Photography and private collections in Europe and the USA.

Vika’s webpage: www.vikaeksta.com

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ekstavika/

Hanele Zane Putniņa lives and works in Riga. Hanele’s graphic prints are most often based on mythological images from folklore and legends, which she often recreates in large-scale linocut technique. Her large-scale compositions of cosmological images alternate with modest absurdities of everyday situations, which she calls “broegels”.

Hanele is interested in historical printmaking techniques and everything related to them. She continues her search in the world of linocut, taking as large a chisel as possible and trying to find a treasure among the linoleum shavings. The first hectare carved in linoleum is fast approaching.

Since the publication of her large-format book “Smurgulis un Īscaurule” in 2012, she has established the underground publishing house “Rakete” in Riga. The connection between graphic techniques and the book is so striking that when evening falls, she goes to her underground print shop to assemble some spreads.

Ingrīda Pičukāne (1978, Latvia) is an artist and a teacher in animation and comics at the Riga Art and media school. She graduated from the Art Academy of Latvia, Estonian Academy of Arts and Jānis Rozentāls Art High School. She works in different techniques: drawing, comics, video, animation, installations, murals and live performance. Pičukāne has participated in several editions of the contemporary art festival “Survival Kit”, in many international comics exhibitions and illustrated children’s books published by “Liels un mazs”. Lately Pičukāne has been mostly interested in feminist art, drawing comics with female characters, making large scale paintings, and has published a feminist zine “Samanta”. She is also very passionate about going in nature, foraging and exploring wild edible plants.

Lidija Zaneripa graduated from the Visual Communication Faculty of the Latvian Academy of Arts in 2021 and obtained a master’s degree. She participates in exhibitions and organises interdisciplinary art events both in Latvia and abroad.

Lidija works with static and moving images, as well as experimental sound art. In her practice, she is looking for errors in rendered reality, and for visual and contextual nuances in trivial actions and events. She tends to look ironically at moments of reality and to avoid dullness caused by seriousness.

Kristīne Krauze-Slucka is a visual artist based in Riga. In her practice, she works with a conceptual approach and observes phenomena of change between man, technology, and nature, often focusing on the materiality aspects of the chosen media. 

She has obtained a Fine Art Master’s degree from the Visual Communication Department of the Latvian Academy of Arts (2020). She received a scholarship from the foundation of the painter Valdemārs Tone, the Grand Prix of Nordic and Baltic Young Artist Award 2020, and the special prize of the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2021. Twice nominated for the prestigious “Purvītis Prize.” 

Antoine Reserbat-Plantey is a researcher with more than 10 years of experience in fundamental experimental physics. He works mostly with optics and cryogenics (-270°). He obtained his PhD at Néel Institute (France) on nano-optomechanics of graphene and then moved to Barcelona to join the Institute for Photonic Sciences. There, he further explored the optical properties of 2D materials. His main focus is the interaction between a single quantum of light — a photon — and purely 2D objects which does not have volume. He is fascinated by how is the nano-world, and what laws of physics are ruling it.

“‘The dynamics of science are not different from those of the arts: success depends on a resonance between the individual’s imagination and the desires of the audience.'(Nature, 559-2018) For me, a collaboration between artists and scientists should exploit such resonances to stimulate creativity and reflective thinking. Coming from very different backgrounds, artists and scientists might seem to operate in completely different languages, however, we are also trained to communicate our knowledge and techniques using other means such as images, sounds, textures. I believe both artists and scientists have the ability to bridge the gap between the disciplines, and thus have the responsibility to collectively tackle the difficult issues happening in our society. As a researcher in fundamental physics, I know that new ideas may come from a non-rational or analytic mindset. Productions of the architect Jean Nouvel (KKL, Quai Branly) have directly influenced my works on suspended nanostructures.”

The work of Voldemars Johansons merges his interests in visuality, sound and science and explores the perception and nature of experience in visible and audible domains. He creates experimental projects that synthesize art, science and technology to explore diverse phenomena and represent the experience through environments assembled from the visual, acoustic and spatial structures. His research interests address the organic combination of acoustic information and spatial forms in creation of sonic environments and sculptures, examining the joint morphology of acoustic, visual and spatial domains. In his work borders between the perception of the visible, the invisible and the audible dissolve to create a unified perceptual situation. “Art has the privilege of being able to reflect about the unproven, the unrecognized, thus broadening the horizons of thinking,” comments the author.

In 2007 he attains a degree from Royal Conservatoire, Institute of Sonology in Den Haag  where he  studied composition of electronic music with Paul Berg, Joel Ryan and Kees Tazelaar among others. After graduation his research interests pursue organic combination of acoustic information and spatial forms in creation of sonic environments and sculptures, examining the joint morphology of acoustic, visual and spatial domains.
Johanson’s work has been presented at events and diverse venues internationally: the Venice biennial of Architecture, Ars Electronica Center (Linz), BOZAR (Brussels), Ruhrtriennale (de), TodaysArt Festival (The Hague), STEIM (Amsterdam), Sound Forest (Riga), Unsound Festival (Krakow), CAC Vilnius, Concertgebouw Brugge, WRO Media art biennale (Wroclaw), LISTE art fair (Basel), the Latvian National Opera and elsewhere.

Amy Mackie is a curator and writer based in New Orleans. Since 2013, she has served as the Director of PARSE NOLA, a nonprofit curatorial and research-based residency and art program. From 2011 to 2012 she was the Director of Visual Arts at the Contemporary Arts Center in New Orleans and from 2007 to 2010, Curatorial Associate at the New Museum in New York.

She curated numerous exhibitions at both institutions. As an independent curator, she curated “It Could Go Either Way: Mariam Ghani + Erin Ellen Kelly” at Rogaland Kunstsenter in Stavanger, Norway in 2014 and at the Anchorage Museum in Anchorage, Alaska in 2015. Mackie was the recipient of a 2013 Curatorial Fellowship from the Stavanger Municipality Culture Department in Norway, a 2010 Research Fellowship at the Henry Moore Institute in Leeds, England, and a 2009 CEC Artslink Grant to produce a project in Bulgaria. She has lectured at Bard College, Brooklyn College, College of Charleston, and Yale University, and has written for Art in America, Art Papers, FANTOM Photographic Quarterly, Pelican Bomb, Universes in Universe, as well as numerous books and catalogues. Mackie holds a M.A. in curatorial studies from the Center for Curatorial Studies, Bard College and a B.A. in liberal arts from Sarah Lawrence College.

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Daria Fedchenko is a Ukrainian artist who is residing with us at PAiR since May 2022.

She has obtained a Bachelor degree from Printing and Publishing Institute of the National Technical University of Ukraine “Igor Sikorsky Kyiv Polytechnic Institute” and ever since has worked with freelance drawing.

During her stay at the residency, Daria has been examining the surroundings of Pāvilosta and capturing the residency house in delicate drawings.

Sandra Kosorotova is a Tallinn-based artist and designer. She is working mainly with plants, textiles and text, often using surplus and / or biodegradable materials to create art objects, that also have practical applications.

In 2016 she graduated from the Fashion Design MA program at the Estonian Academy of Arts and was awarded the Young Applied Artist Prize by the academy the same year. She also holds a BA degree from the Graphic Design department of the same institution. From 2013 to 2016 Kosorotova co-led the NGO New Russian Culture in Estonia, established to create links between the Estonian- and Russian-speaking communities through cultural events. Currently she is co-running an open garden near Narva Art Residency in Narva, Estonia. In 2021 her works were exhibited in Kumu Art Museum (Tallinn), Tallinn Art Hall, Estonian Contemporary Art Museum EKKM, PUBLICS Helsinki, Kim? CAC (Riga), Institute for Environmental Solutions (Cēsis), Narva Art Residency NART, Estonian Mining Museum. Sandra also took part in the first Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA1) in 2018.

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Sille Kima is an artist, engineer and a mover in body, sense and sound. Her work is rooted in sensuality and collective ways of being. Her work looks at the interplay between the setting of boundaries and dissolution within relationships and power structures, with a dedication to scalar approach and directed towards the planetary. She also makes music about boredom in love and pollinate tomato blossoms, both on her windowsill and in gardens with open gates. One of those is an open garden and a garden residency she is co-running near Narva Art Residency in Narva, Estonia.

She asks, how does the trauma-activated boredom of coming to a standstill in environmental struggles color the relationship of human and the rest of the planetary ecosystem? How can we radically attend to the non-human with tenderness – without exploitation? What does it mean that “Where slavery has been, love is already tainted” (Hortense Spillers)?

In Pavilosta she will continue creating a new work based on sound and sensoriality that would convey the affect of benevolent boredom, in order to explore what is necessary for making space for solidarity and change in the realm of the pre-political, having ecological justice, the roots of (neo)colonial pain and violence stemming from Europe, and its effect on post-soviet Baltic identities in mind.

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Rasmus Myrup (Born 1991, Copenhagen) is a Danish artist, whose work seeks a synthesis of the big and the small. With roots in our belonging to the natural realm, Myrup investigates the big narratives of humanity’s existence, evolution and history through the lens of small, personal and intimate emotions. Through his sculptures, installations and drawings, he seeks to understand other times, species and worlds – and in that way everything from Neanderthals to trees or folklore can provide new perspectives on our understanding of death, sex and power.
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His recent solo exhibitions include “Folx” at Nicolai Wallner (DK), “Re-member” me at Jack Barrett (US) and “Homo Homo” at Tranen Contemporary Art Center (DK).

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Sabīne Šnē (1996) graduated with BFA (2020) from the department of Visual Communication of the Art Academy of Latvia. She has participated in various exhibitions and art projects in Latvia and internationally.
Sabīne Šnē constructs visual stories in order to explore intersections between culture and nature informed by historical and current ideas. She reflects on human desires, habits, traces of actions and their impact on the environment. The content of the work determines the end result but usually artist work with digital media.

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Alëna Vinokurova is an artist born and raised in the Yakutia region of Russian Siberia. Alena’s work has predominately uses multiple screen video – installations, including 3D imagery, photography, as well as found images and archival footage. Her practice is focused on exploring synchronicity through the Internal landscape, intrinsically linking with the external ecosystems, re-activating memories stored in matter through rituals and dreams to draw parallels between personal, cultural, and ecological histories.

Her studies include a Master’s Degree in Fine Arts from Hogeschool voor de Kunsten, Utrecht (2021) and a Bachelor’s Degree in Photography from the British Higher School of Art and Design, Moscow (2016).

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Maike Statz is an artist and interior architect educated in The Netherlands and Australia, now living in Bergen, Norway. Through her work she is engaged in the influence of architecture on individuals and society, focusing on the relationship between gender, sexuality and space. Working with writing and installation, Maike makes use of design tools and methodologies, questioning how history is embedded in our various architectures and what power dynamics are at play. Recently Maike introduced science fiction into her practice, suggesting feminist science fiction as a literary genre through which the cultural constructions of race, class, sex, sexuality, and gender can be decoded. What can we learn from spaces built through writing, in a context where reality is ruptured and re-imagined?

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Erik Martinson (Canada/Latvia) is an independent curator and writer. Recent projects include: ‘The Years Without Light’ at Institute for Contemporary Arts (ICA), London; ‘Like
slow breathing, it seemed to emanate from inside the walls’ at LUX, London; ‘Closer to home than you could’ve ever imagined’ at Chalton Gallery, London; ‘Portal Atop a Bus Stop’ at
Contemporary Art Centre (CAC), Vilnius; ‘pontypool-txt-advntr-sim.net’ (with Gailė Pranckūnaitė) at Cosmos Carl – Platform Parasite; ‘“I” Statements’ at LUX, London; ‘Resting
Transmissions / Eyes Above, Bodies Below / Nice night for a walk’ at Ryder Projects, London; ‘Tell me about the ones who sleep through storms: Films and Videos from the Baltics’ at
Toronto International Film Festival’s Wavelengths Series; ‘Its origins are indeterminate’ at Whitechapel Gallery and Close-up Film Centre, London; ‘Resistance’ at Process Experimental
Film Festival, Riga; texts on Ben Burgis and Ksenia Pedan / Klara Lidén / Augustas Serapinas for Baltic Triennial 13: Give Up the Ghost Catalogue, CAC/CURA; ‘The Surface of the Sun’ at Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM), Tallinn; ‘The Hundred Programmes’ (on Steve Reinke) for 5th Anniversary Publication, Rupert, Vilnius; ‘Self Does Not Understand’ at
Cubitt, London; ‘Still There are Seeds to be Gathered, and Room in the Bag of Stars’ (co-curated with HÆRK) at Lofoten International Art Festival, Svolvær; ‘Not really now not any
more’ at Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo; ‘Almost No Memory’ at Baltic Analog Lab, Riga; ‘There was a Forest in the Ceiling’ at Rupert, Vilnius; ‘All Flesh is Grass’ at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga; and ‘Suggested for You’ (with Sandra Kosorotova) for History of Joy, Part 4.

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Hildur Elísa Jónsdóttir is an artist and composer based in Reykjavík. She finished a soloist exam on classical clarinet from the Reykjavík Music College in 2015 and a Bachelor’s degree from the Fine Arts Department of The Iceland University of the Arts in 2019. After graduation she did an internship with Lina Lapelytė (Sun, Sea & Marina) in Vilnius, Lithuania. In her works she uses performance, installation and music to interrupt normative narrative and show her subjects in a new, and often comical, light.

Hildur Elísa’s works have been shown and performed widely, e.g. in Ásmundarsalur, Kjarvalsstaðir, Hof in Akureyri, and at Platform Nord (NO) and Ung Nordisk Musik in Tampere (FI). In 2020 she curated Primate Climate in Korpúlfsstaðir and has since been project manager of The Month of Visual Art 2020 and World Art Day 2021 (IS).

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.

Marta Griģe has graduated from the painting department of Art Academy of Latvia (2021) and is currently continuing her studies in the Master’s programme.

Her current practice revolves around interest in contemplating different materials and materiality as such. Griģe brings her attention to noticing patterns in the nature. By analyzing scrupulously the details of her surroundings Marta tries to understand the structure and rules of reality and her place in it.

The PAiR Residency open call program is supported by Nordic Culture Point.