Opening program of the Riga Photography Biennial—NEXT 2025

The Riga Photography Biennial (RPB)—NEXT 2025 program will open at the end of April with its central events. On 24 April at 18.00 in the Art Academy of Latvia’s experimental art space ‘Pilot’ will be the opening of ‘Emerging Curator!’ award-winner Roberta Atraste’s exhibition ‘The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poems’, but on 25 April at 18.00 in the ISSP Gallery – solo exhibition of the winner of the NEXT 2025 Award ‘Seeking the Latest in Photography!’: Ruudu Ulas’s ‘Difficult Objects’. On 30 April at 18.00, the ISSP Gallery will host a Lecture ‘What Is Next? The Landscape of Polish Photography Today’ by Adam Mazur.

NEXT Award ‘Emerging Curator!’ was launched in 2021 in collaboration with the Curatorial Studies of the Art Academy of Latvia to provide a platform for young Latvian curators and highlight the role of the curator as a creative personality and mediator between artists, works of art, viewers and society within contemporary cultural processes. The NEXT 2025 Award was open to young curators from the Baltic States. This year’s winner Roberta Atraste (LV, 1998) has a BA in Art History and Theory from the Art Academy of Latvia and is currently continuing her studies in the Curatorial Studies of the Art Academy of Latvia.

In the exhibition ‘The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poems’, Roberta Atraste turns to the bureaucratic and administrative processes involved in art. Although these practices existed even before conceptual art, it was in the 1960s that artists began functioning as “managers” and “clerks”. Those in the field of visual art were among the first to entrust the production of their work to others – not in order to completely erase or dematerialise the art object, as is sometimes believed, but rather to engage in such activities as registering, documentation, archiving, listing and indexing. In art history, these practices are sometimes related to the concept of institutional criticism. Yet it is also possible to see them in another light, stressing the often-ignored absurd, poetic, psychological and sometimes even pleasurable aspects of these procedures. The aim of the exhibition is to study and present the aesthetics of bureaucratic and administrative processes in a contemporary context. Exhibition ‘The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poems’ will be on view at the Art Academy of Latvia’s experimental art space ‘Pilot’ from 25 April to 6 June. Participants: John Huntington (SE), Arta Kauliņa (LV), Sara Krøgholt Trier (DK), Katariin Mudist (EE), Evija Pintāne (LV). Scenographer: Krišjānis Beļavskis (LV).

The Award ‘Seeking the Latest in Photography!’ was first held in 2016 and since 2019 has been organised in cooperation with ISSP Gallery to encourage young artists from the Baltic States to reveal a conceptually deep, original view of their times in visually powerful works. Seeking the Latest in Photography!’ winners Ruudu Ula’s (1987, EE) solo exhibition ‘Difficult Objects’ will be on view at the ISSP Gallery from 26 April to 30 May. Curator: Inga Brūvere (LV).

Ruudu Ulas holds a BA from Glasgow School of Art and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London. In 2023, Ruudu also won the London Photographers’ Gallery Young Talent Award. ‘Difficult Objects’ explores tangible and psychological intersections through photography. Each work navigates the space between the familiar and the unknown, challenging us to reflect on our personal relationships with ubiquitous public and private structures. This exhibition seeks to depict the ways in which urban spaces and domestic spheres collide and merge, leaving strangely shaped gaps in which the imagination attempts to interpret connections.

At the opening night of the exhibition at ISSP Gallery the other finalists of the 2025 competition Klaus Leo Richter (LT), Riin Maide (EE), Keiu Maasik (EE), Gedvile Tamosiunaite (LT) and Paula Punkstiņa (LV) also will present their work. ‘Seeking the Latest in Photography!’ also has long-standing partners who present their special prizes.

Tprogram name ‘Next’ embodies the idea of movement. ‘Next’ is a transition—never safe, predictable or known in advance, it has a direct and irrevocable presence that constantly poses the question: Is whatever comes next linked to what was before? The opening program of RPB—NEXT 2025 will be complemented by a lecture ‘What Is Next? The Landscape of Polish Photography Today’ by an art historian, curator, and assistant professor Adam Mazur (PL), focusing on Polish photography today. The marginalisation of traditional associations, the crisis and change in the definition of festivals, and even the creation of new models of photographic institutions are all part of the new institutional landscape of Polish photography. The lecture by Adam Mazur will take place on 30 April at 18.00 in the ISSP Gallery, the event will be held in English.

The Riga Photography Biennial (RPB) is an international contemporary art event, focusing on the analysis of visual culture and artistic representation. The term ‘photography’ in the title of the biennial is used as an all-embracing concept encompassing a mixed range of artistic image-making practices that have continued to transform the lexicon of contemporary art in the 21st century. The Riga Photography Biennial—NEXT offers visibility and provides a platform for promising young artists and helps to announce themselves to a wider audience and context. Riga Photography Biennial—NEXT 2025 program from 24 April to 6 July, the Riga Photography Biennial—NEXT 2025 program will offer a wide-ranging program of exhibitions and education events, giving the floor to emerging artists and curators from the Baltic and other countries who have addressed aspects of the theme ‘invisible but present’.

ISSP has been active in the field of contemporary photography for more than 18 years, developing an active photography environment in Latvia, educating the young generation of Latvian photographers and promoting international exchange.

Art Academy of Latvia (AAL) was founded in 1919, alongside the establishment of the Republic of Latvia, and is the leading art university in the country. Embodying the spirit of creativity and freedom, AAL has been able to stand for its independence and purposefully develop – it has become an important art institution on a regional and European scale, whose aim is to provide high-quality competitive higher education and comprehensively develop art, design and science, thus ensuring unity of creative and scientific research as well as the continuity of studies.

The Art Academy of Latvia experimental art space ‘Pilot’ is located in the very heart of Riga’s Old Town – at 3 R. Wagner street. Established in 2020, it functions as a dynamic creative platform dedicated to promoting emerging artists and providing them with practical experience in the process of exhibition making during their studies. The program of the art space offers insight into the academy’s current creative outputs, includes interdisciplinary experiments and carries out both local and international collaborative projects. The exhibition content is created by students, graduates, professors and foreign guests, often interacting with each other. ‘Pilot’ is a space where ideas gain momentum and take off.

Supporters and partners of the Riga Photography Biennial—NEXT 2025: State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, exhibition hall ‘Riga Contemporary Art Space’, Art Academy of Latvia, Experimental Art Space of the Art Academy of Latvia ‘Pilot’, ISSP Gallery, Gallery ‘Alma’, Gallery ‘Asni’, ‘Smilga’ Culture Space, ‘VV Foundation’, ‘NoRoutine Books’, The Centre of Creative Learning ‘Annas 2’, Nordic Council of Ministers’ Office in Latvia, Office for Contemporary Art Norway (OKA), Estonian Embassy in Riga, Embassy of Sweden in Riga, Embassy of Finland in Riga, ‘Riga Art Week’ (RAW), printing house ‘Adverts’, ‘Hibnerstudio’, ‘Rixwell Hotels’, ‘Arctic Paper’, Valmiermuiža Craft Brewery, Arterritory.com, Echo Gone Wrong, NOBA

For more information: www.rpbiennial.com ^[1]