On June 13, the international symposium “ElektrON – the future of amber” program was held at the Pāvilosta Culture House, bringing together artists, researchers, curators, designers and cultural historians from Latvia, Lithuania, Norway, Germany, Hong Kong and Canada. The day’s program was dedicated to amber as a contemporary material, cultural heritage, technological metaphor and instrument of future imagination.
The symposium, implemented by the VV Foundation in cooperation with the association “ASTE. Art, Science, Technology, Education”, took place within the framework of the program “Liepāja – European Capital of Culture 2027”, and its goal was to create an interdisciplinary conversation about the importance of amber in contemporary culture, art, design and science. The Pāvilosta program became one of the most important events of the symposium, where, in addition to lectures, ideas for future artworks were also presented, which will further develop within the framework of the project “ElektrON – the Future of Amber”.
The day’s lecture program focused on the cultural and historical significance of amber and its potential in contemporary art, design and technological culture. Barbara Ābele, professor at the Art Academy of Latvia, design researcher and textile artist, presented her work “Amber Code” (2014), in which the materiality and chemical structure of amber are interpreted in a textile installation. Artist and researcher Paulas Vītols, in her lecture “Electrical* Art”, examined the interaction of art and science, paying special attention to electricity research in the Age of Enlightenment and its impact on contemporary culture.
In her lecture “Guidelines for Future Fossils,” interdisciplinary curator and artist Zane Cērpiņa, who works in Norway, invited participants to think about amber as a tool for imagining the future, focusing on the question of what traces of modern civilization could be preserved in future fossils. In turn, Sigita Bagužaitė-Talačkienė from Lithuania, the director of the Palanga Amber Museum, introduced the participants to the history of Baltic amber and its importance in the cultural heritage of the region. Director and artist Signe Birkova presented her work, which was created during the Master’s degree program at the Latvian Academy of Arts, in which the theme of amber and related cultural perceptions are played with irony.
In the afternoon, the symposium participants got acquainted with the ideas and concepts of the artists of the project “ElektrON – the Future of Amber”. Michael Saup (Germany), Aistė Ambrazevičiūtė (Lithuania), as well as former and current PAiR residents Mikus Svikulis, Ieva Viese, Zane Zelmene, Kim Hankyul (Norway), Trevor Yeung (Hong Kong) and Helen Liene Dreifelds (Canada) presented their projects. The artists’ presentations outlined different approaches to the topic of amber — from the material and its geological history to technologies, memory, ecology and speculative forms of the future.
The core of the symposium was formed by around 20 international participants, while the total number of participants reached around 30 people. VV Foundation and the PAiR residency would like to thank everyone who participated in the Pāvilosta program and created this conversation — artists, lecturers, researchers, curators, designers, cultural historians, as well as everyone who helped to implement this event.
The project is being implemented within the framework of the “Liepāja 2027” program.