Photo reportage from RPB – NEXT 2023 Award 'Emerging Curator!' exhibition at the experimental art space of the Art Academy of Latvia 'Pilot'

June 14, 2023
Author Echo Gone Wrong

Published in Photo / Video from Latvia

View from Riga Photography Biennial - NEXT 2023 Award “Emerging Curator!” winner's Laima Daberte’s exhibition “Time Found”. Photo: Ingus Bajārs

Until July 15, Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT 2023 Award “Emerging Curator!” winner’s Laima Daberte’s group show “Time Found” is on at the Experimental art space of the Art Academy of Latvia “Pilot”. Along with Daberte’s own works, the works of Latvian artists Armands Andže and Kristaps Freimanis, and Portuguese artist Teresa Faleiro are on display.

The Award “Emerging Curator!” is held by the Riga Photography Biennial in cooperation with the Curatorial Course of the Art Academy of Latvia. The competition offers Latvia’s emerging curators the opportunity to show their abilities and take part in promoting awareness of curators’ significant contribution to the art ecosystem. It encourages discussion of the role of the curator in contemporary art and culture as a creative personality and mediator building a more successful dialogue with the public.

The winner is determined by an international jury of art experts. In 2023, it comprised curator, artist, critic and creative director of “Publics” curatorial platform Paul O’Neill (IE); chief curator of the collection of the Finnish Museum of Contemporary Art “Kiasma” PhD Saara Hacklin (FI); director and curator at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art Solvita Krese (LV); art historian, curator and Vice-Rector at the Art Academy of Latvia Antra Priede (LV); director and program curator at the Riga Photography Biennial Inga Brūvere (LV).

The exhibition is supported by State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Art Academy of Latvia, Experimental Art Space of the Art Academy of Latvia “Pilot”, Rixwell Hotels, Printing house “Adverts”, Arterritory.com, Echo Gone Wrong, Noba.ac, and BLOK.

“In the turbulent whirlwind of everyday events, artists are increasingly seeking places of refuge to rediscover or return to in order to find what drives our innermost creativity. It seems that Laima has both found these places and continues to search for them in order to provide the audience and the people experiencing the exhibition with a place of refuge,” reads the jury statement.

The curator and artists of “Time Found” examine a tendency inherent in human memory, i.e., the way in which the perception of place and space is interpreted in different ways, depending on the individual’s previous experience, feelings, thoughts or the lack of them at a given time. Streets, squares, and even entire cities and landscapes can be defined using associations, thoughts, and even bodily sensations, thus creating collections of sensations and memory maps we carry with us and incessantly experience anew.

Laima Daberte (1991) is currently enrolled in the Curatorial Studies MA program at the Art Academy of Latvia. She holds a BA in Sculpture from the Academy as well as a BA in Architecture from the Riga Technical University. She has participated in metal casting and stone sculpture symposiums held in Latvia and created objects exhibited in the urban environment.

Riga Photography Biennial’s NEXT program is dedicated to highlighting the young artists and curators. In 2023, the festival’s events are covering the “awkward” topics. Biennial’s events will continue until July 23. Find out more on www.rpbiennial.com