PAiR is a residency in Pāvilosta, Latvia, founded with the aim of stimulating creative interactions and promoting the transfer of knowledge in contemporary art. It is a space where artists, researchers, and curators from diverse disciplines come together to reflect, create, and connect. The residency offers a peaceful, distraction-free environment in which ideas are allowed to evolve and grow.
PAiR is excited to welcome:
- Kim Hankyul (b.1990, Busan, South Korea) lives and works in Oslo, Norway. Through evocative soundscapes and mechanical movements, his work questions nations and borders, belief systems and media communities. He holds a bachelor’s degree in Aesthetics from Seoul National University and a master’s degree in art from The Faculty of Fine Art, Music and Design, University of Bergen. Hankyul’s work has been awarded the Kistefos Prize and the Sparebankstiftelsen DNB’s grant in Norway and is held in the Astrup Fearnley Collection. His work has recently been presented at Salón Acme, Mexico City (2024), Pal Project, Paris (2024), Kunstnerforbundet, Oslo (2024) and Entrée, Bergen (2023).
- Trevor Yeung(b.1988, Guangdong Province, China) lives and works in Hong Kong. He has graduated from the Academy of Visual Arts at Hong Kong Baptist University in 2010. In Yeung’s mixed-media works, carefully staged objects, animals, and plants function as aesthetic pretexts which delicately and ironically address notions of artificiality and the processes of human relations. Yeung represented Hong Kong in a Collateral Event at the 60th Venice Biennale in 2024, and his return exhibition was staged at M+ in Hong Kong in 2025. He was shortlisted for the Sigg Prize 2023 and Future Generation Art Prize 2021.
- Angharad Williams (b. 1986, Ynys Môn, Wales) is an artist, writer, and performer who is concerned with the role of poetry in our increasingly militarised society. Recent solo exhibitions and performances took place at Haus am Waldsee, Berlin (2025); SIMIAN, Copenhagen (2025); Schiefe Zähne, Berlin (2024); Fanta, Milan (2023); Kunstverein Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf (2022); Mostyn, Llandudno (2022) and Kevin Space, Vienna (2021). Williams is a teacher at the Master’s Fine Art at Zürcher Hochschule der Künste, Zürich.
- Elena Narbutaite (b. 1984) lives and works in Vilnius. Her sculptures combine influences from life, writing, music history, and conversations with scientists. By presenting the unexpected, Narbutaitė aims to create social situations in which the audience can collectively experience surprise or confusion. She has has participated in exhibitions internationally, including the joint Lithuanian and Cyprus pavilion at the 55th Venice Biennale (2013) and the Liverpool Biennial (2016). Recent exhibitions include Autostrada Biennale, Prizren (2025); Light, Grazer Kunstverein, Graz (2025); 15th Baltic Triennial: Same Day, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius (2024); Unknown Familiars, Leopold Museum, Vienna (2024); Mars Returns, Mykolas Žilinskas Gallery, Kaunas (2022); Nashashibi/Skaer: Thinking Through Other Artists, Tate St Ives (2018), among others. She is an associate editor for BILL, an annual magazine of photographic stories initiated by Julie Peeters.
- Gintaras Didžiapetris (b.1985, Vilnius, Lithuania) is an artist living and working in Vilnius. His work takes many forms, photography, drawing, line, object, film, text, sound, and more, in which knowledge, intuition, and creativity are intertwined within a deep layer of mental geometry. Works by Didžiapetris have been exhibited in many important group shows in Europe, the United States and Canada. He participated in ILLUMInations at the 54th Venice Biennale. Solo exhibitions of his work have taken place at several institutions, such as the Contemporary Art Centre (Vilnius), Museo d’Arte Contemporanea di Villa Croce (Genoa), Salzburger Kunstverein (Salzburg), the Elba Benítez Gallery (Madrid), and Tulips&Roses (Brussels). Didžiapetris has been a resident artist at the Palais de Tokyo/Le Pavillon (Paris, 2010–2011) and Fondazione Morra Greco (Naples, 2010).
- Kyle Dacuyan (b. 1989, Sterling, VA) is an American poet and performer living and working in Brooklyn, NY. He writes about work, the ways that work bears upon writing, where writing begins (in voice), where voice begins (in body), and how the body can be something more than a working body. He is the recipient of the 2023 Cy Twombly Award in Poetry from the Foundation for Contemporary Arts, and a 2021 Fellowship in Creative Writing from the National Endowment for the Arts. Dad Rockpremiered at The Shed in June 2024, and INCITEMENTS is forthcoming from Ugly Duckling Presse. From 2018-2024, he served as Executive Director of The Poetry Project at St. Mark’s.
- Helena Kritis (b. 1981, Belgium) is the chief curator at WIELS Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels. Her interest lies mainly with time-based and performative practices, and she has worked with Mounira Al Solh, Nora Turato, Wu Tsang & Boychild, Kiluanji Kia Henda, Pauline Boudry & Renate Lorenz, Christian Nyampeta and Ed Atkins. At WIELS, she curated solo exhibitions of Oscar Murillo (2024), Danai Anesiadou (2023), Shezad Dawood (2023) and Lucy Raven (2022), and she co-curated the group exhibitions Regenerate (2021) and Risquons-Tout (2020).
- Omar Chowdhury (b. 1984, Bangladesh) is a Bengali artist and filmmaker living between Brussels and Dhaka. Originally trained in industrial relations and information systems, he now produces parafictional installations, films, and performances which animate the ambiguities and ruptures of diasporic life. Chowdhury is an immigrant from Bengal, and this is reflected in his layered installations. His work has been exhibited worldwide, and he has been the recipient of international grants and commissions, as well as an Australian Cinematographers Society Gold Award.
This year, we are also delighted to welcome to PAiR Residency the winner of the international competition supported by VV Foundation — Riga Performance Festival Starptelpa laureate Ilze Mazpane.
- Ilze Mazpane (b. Riga, Latvia) is a performance artist with a background in philosophy, experimental theatre, art education, and creative writing. Mazpane creates site-specific durational performances characterised by poeticism, a preoccupation with structure, and minimal means of expression. In her work, she seeks freedom from the tyranny of clock time and therefore explores pure duration (H. Bergson), kairos or the right moment, the right balance (Aristotle), and the concept of flow (M. Csikszentmihalyi). Mazpane is the winner of Riga Performance Festival Starptelpa 2025.
*The project “Amber Season in Pāvilosta” is implemented within the framework of the “Liepāja 2027” programme, using funding provided by the Ministry of Culture, the City of Liepāja, South Kurzeme Municipality, and Kuldīga Municipality.
*VV Foundation has received funding for Artist Residencies from the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture to establish project PAiR – Pāvilosta Artist in Residency 2026.
About VV Foundation
Founded in 2018, the VV Foundation unites art enthusiasts Vita Liberte, Vilnis Štrams and Jānis Borgs with a mission to promote cross-disciplinary creativity in contemporary art and research.
The Foundation advances enduring creative partnerships and collaboration throughout the contemporary cultural scene in the Baltic region and between leading international artists, curators, researchers, theorists, gallerists and creative industry professionals. By running the PAiR residency and organising exhibitions, community art projects, educational events and creativity workshops, the VV Foundation aims to become a leading patron of contemporary culture in the region.
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