ARTIST IN RESIDENCE

Artist in Residence is a work produced during a month-long artist residency in Riga, Latvia in April 2014. The work explores the process of creating a bond with one’s surroundings through recurrent encounters, planned or unplanned, while exploring the very concept of artistic residence as an inherent part of contemporary art routines. The survey starts with the artist’s closest surroundings, which results in approximately 90 photographs of almost every item found in the residency space. It then goes on to explore the area of roughly 1 square kilometre around the residency space that may be perceived as close / comfortable surroundings—through a series of dedicated journeys or causal photographing.

As the space perceived as familiar grows, the project branches off into smaller expeditions, such as sampling of weeds from lawns in central Riga, or documenting the results of a trip to Bolderaia seaside neighbourhood. Series of photographs of recurrent actions, such as shopping, disposing of waste, preparing of food, serve as a way to explore the temporal axis of forming a connection with a place. Lastly, a series of medium format views of Riga’s cityscape is made. The resulting installation includes pigment prints, a single-channel video with sound, an artist’s statement, three pieces of poetry and miscellaneous textual descriptions and commentary.

Artist in Residence was shown as part of Rigas Dzejas Karte (Poetry Map of Riga) show at Tabakas Fabrikā in Riga in 2014.

Pigment prints, part of a 26×2022 cm composite