The exhibition will present a close up view of the archive, as well as its wider context. The close up will explore and interpret certain elements from the archive - documented exhibitions, events and personalities. These archival materials will form the basis of story telling, uncovering new connections between events in the recent past and disrupting the prevailing order inside the archival folders. In contrary, the broader, more generic view will offer an insight in the work of artists who create and analyse these archives, opening up important questions about how historical facts are construed, while looking at the relationship between culture, politics and ideology at certain periods in the past and nowadays. Central to the context of this exhibition are the post Soviet and post colonial terms as significant tools for understanding the current situation locally, as well as globally.

 

Several local and international artists have been invited to take part in this exhibition - Babak Afrassiabi and Nasrin Tabatabai, Alberto Baraya, Jānis Borgs and Laura Feldberga, Ivars Drulle, Aiga Dzalbe and Kristaps Epners, Maryam Jafri, Viktorija Eksta, Inga Erdmane, Kristaps Grundšteins and Līga Lindenbauma, Žilvinas Landzbergas, Taus Makhacheva, Haralds Matulis and Ieva Saulīte, Agnieszka Polska, Laura Prikule, Mammu and Passi Rauhala, Tanel Rander, Traģisko pētījumu centrs (Centre of Tragic Research) (Kaspars Groševs, Ainārs Kamoliņš, Daiga Kažociņa), Raden Saleh and Jevgeni Zolotko.

 

The educational programme “Lielā lupa” (The Big Magnifying Glass), developed from materials available in the LCCA's archive about the contemporary art processes in Latvia, supplements the exhibition. The aim of the programme is to provide a compelling introduction for children and young people about the language of contemporary art, as well as the history of Latvian art and culture.

 

As part of the exhibition, on 5th February artist Ehsan Fardjadniya will present 'Invisible History' using materials from the archives from the Netherlands TV about the immigration politics in the 1960s and 1970s in the Netherlands. A symposium with lectures and discussions, exploring the potential of archive in the process of storing culture and knowledge, and interpreting history, will take place on 23rd March. The participants of the symposium will present a range of views founded in the development and research of the contemporary art and exhibition archives.

 

The LCCA's archive gathers information about the contemporary art processes in Latvia from the 1960s until the present time. The archive was started in the early 1990s when, similarly to other post Socialism countries in the Eastern and Central Europe, the Soros Centre for Contemporary Art-Riga was established in Latvia to support the contemporary art processes and their documentation. In 2000 the SCCA-Riga ceased to exist and was replaced by a new, independent organisation - the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, which inherited the archive with all its materials from the SCCA-Riga and continued to actively organise exhibitions. Currently these archival materials have been partially digitased and are applied to research, resulting in new exhibitions and publications.

 

The exhibition has been supported by the EEZ financial instrument, Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia, State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, ABLV Charitable Foundation, the Latvian National Museum of Art and the Artists' Union of Latvia.

 

Exhibition is a part of project "Various Forms of Archives. Archive of Contemporary Art. Research, Exhibition and Symposium", a collaboration project between the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art and the  Living Art Museum (NYLO) in Reykjavik, Iceland.

The project consists of three main strands:

1) Touring exhibition “Lost in the Archive”, which takes place in several Latvian regional culture centres (2015-2016)

2) International contemporary art exhibition “Lost in the Archive” at the exhibition hall “Riga Art Space” (4.02-27.03.2016)

3) International symposium in Riga on 24.02.2016 at the exhibition hall “Riga Art Space”.

Project “Various Forms of Archives. Archive of Contemporary Art. Research, Exhibition and Symposium”, Nr. EEZ04/GSK/2013/06 is realised using a grant of 62,117.09 EUR from Island, Lichtenstein and Norway via the EEA Financial Mechanism. The total project costs are 69,042 EUR, of which state funding constitutes 9317.56 EUR with additional 6924.91 EUR supplied by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art.