Survival Kit 15: Exhibition Measures

To take “measure” is a two-fold act: on one hand, it is scientific and quantitative, and on the other, it is a call to action. Presented across a number of nearby sites in Riga’s city centre on both sides of the Daugava river, “Measures” demonstrates how the knowledge of a city emerges from acutely personal experience, but also from communal struggles and values. It considers possible pasts, presents and futures by measuring, investigating and embracing the diverse knowledges embedded within the city of Riga and beyond, and invites audiences to engage with nature-culture environments, daily bodily experiences, and data and truth-making.

Curator Jussi Koitela elaborates, “Following various trajectories in both its physical environment and subject matters, audiences can engage with the exhibition by encountering causalities that connect different temporalities, collapsed distances and bodies across communities and locations, all the while fumbling amid a mesh of truth, alternative histories and situated knowledges.”  

Continuing the theme of the exhibition “Measures”, the public programme of the festival invites artists and thinkers to reflect on the different forms of knowledge produced by the city and its communities. Gundega Laiviņa, curator of the Survival Kit 15 public programme, says: “The programme is designed to remind people of their right to access the city’s resources, their right to change the city and to change themselves. It invites us to see the city not as a fixed and finished environment to navigate, but rather as a porous and ever-changing space where things become possible.”

Participating artists (*denotes a new commission)

*Linda Boļšakova (LV), Jeremy Deller (UK), *Kritoffer Ørum (DK), Monia Ben Hamouda (IT), Eero Yli-Vakkuri (FI), Toril Johannessen (NO), *Jaana Laakkonen (FI), Lou Mouw (DE/NL) & Isabella Solar Villaseca (SE/CL), *Gerda Paliušytė (LT), Yuri Pattison (IE), *Rena Rädle (DE) & Vladan Jeremić (RS), *Luīze Rukšāne (LV), Vidha Saumya (IN), *Shubhangi Singh, *Laura Soisalon-Soininen (FI), *Līga Spunde (LV), Jon Benjamin Tallerås (NO), Aimée Zito Lema (AR/NL), Fabien Giraud (FR) & Raphaël Siboni (FR), *Konstantin Zhukov (LV), *Malin Arnell (SE) & Mar Fjell (SE), Luna Lund Jensen (DK), Māris Ārgalis (LV), Monika Czyżyk (PL) & Neil Luck (UK), Renée Green (USA).

Survival Kit 15 is organized by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art.

Survival Kit 15 is supported by Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, Riga City Council, State Culture Capital Foundation (SCCF), SIF, Embassy of Italy in Riga, Goethe-Institut Rīga, Mondriaan Fund, OCA fund, Danish Arts Foundation, Culture Moves Europe, NOVUM Riga, British Council, LIAA, Swedish Arts Grants Committee, Arctic Paper, Culture Ireland, Embassy of Finland Riga, Zuzeum, Skrīveru saldumi, LSM, Satori, Echo Gone Wrong, Riga This Week, Riga Neighborhood, Vieglās valodas aģentūra,  Pasqua Wines,  VV Foundation.