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RICA, LATVIA
APRIL 15-AUGUST 21, 2016
It Is always a visual and intellectual pleasure to visit Riga, with its art nouveau architecture on Albert Street, uniformed guards protecting the Freedom Monument, and lush parks that line the Daugava River as it loops through this romantic city. As Riga is the largest city in the Baltics, its arts and culture scene appears to be more advanced than most of its neighboring metropolises, yet there is still room for progress in certain fields-one of these being photography. As I revisited the unique city, I was greeted by one of Riga's leading curators, Inga Brüvere, who graciously guided me through cobblestone streets to visit particular venues of interest, such as her curation for the 2016 Riga Photography Biennial, Restart, and other satellite events. As we walked together through the city center by foot on a spring day, Brüvere explained that Latvian photography had previously been perceived more as a recording and archiving tool than a contemporary art form within the Baltic art scene-partially due to the fact that, according to Brüvere, Riga's photography departments, museums, and cultural institutions place emphasis on photography as a means to document history and our given era using nonfiction and factual modes of expression to reflect more digestible versions of reality.
Brüvere's group exhibition Restart was the foundation for the biennial, representing an international cluster of notable photographers who attempt to push the boundaries between and among art and photography while also incorporating media such as text, audio, and cyber networks. In her introductory text for the exhibition catalog, Aiga Dzalbe comments:
The main idea behind Restart can be described as a necessity to deepen the understanding of our world, by highlighting its dialectical connection with the past and the future. We can all but fantasize whether the future influences today, whilst attempting to guess what will be the shape of our future memories. Meanwhile, we can be certain that the past is not just a shadow of our "here and now" consciousness, even more so- memory's purpose is to help us orient ourselves in future situations.1
The exhibition focused not only on how each artist can be viewed in terms of our current era, but on how the works presented relate to...