We found a small (work)shop in Liepaja and bought this portrait by a Liepaja Art School student. While the painting was nailed directly onto the wall, I wanted some old photos framed.
I went down in the cellar to spray paint a few frames. The cellar was a good escape from the mediterranean style heat which had been on for days. Frogs live there. And it has an adorable interior too.
Kapsede village sort of stretches between two centres. The landowners in the middle wanted to stop village dwellers from using a communally paved and lit route leading through their land—which arrangement has worked for decades if not centuries. There was strong resistance as the only other interconnection is the narrow unlit highway. Many school kids must get through daily. As compromise a narrow passage with a high fence was built through the private land. In there you go, pushing a baby carriage wondering if it will slip past the lamp post on which a red sign warns “Beware of the angry dog.”
Another hindrance on the route appeared yesterday. We got a brief gale and a fairly tall lime tree said krraack. This one will be easily solved though.
Last weekend we took a nice canoe ride with kids in the Ogre river. (Sorry: the river pictures are from May 2010 after the flood.)
A healthy beaver population takes care of forest management here.
Whoever doesn’t share beavers’ view in arranging vertical objects, will probably rest their minds in the local shop instead:
Last week we started driving towards southern Latvia. The first night we slept in Tallinn.
The second night we spent in Vecpiebalga. (Tagliatelle con mosquitoes for dinner.)
In Berzkrogs we stopped for refreshments.
In Odzene (~Adderley) we saw that storks were the castle’s only inhabitants.
The midsummer night and day was relaxing — also for the gigantic sheatfish we didn’t catch from river Daugava.
On the way back up we stopped for very nice ice cream in Skriveri. A sign on the door reads “We don’t know when this shop is open. Sometimes it is, sometimes not.”
This morning I went to see the Local Time exhibition. Not mine obviously but another one in Riga with the same title. You see, just two days before my exhibition opening I heard that Riga Goethe institute will open almost simultaneously a poster exhibition of Stefan Koppelkamm’s long-term project Local Time — which I only managed to see on the last day of mine.
The morning was as rainy as yesterday, topped with strong wind. Again many umbrellas passing by the gallery. I was passing time by taking pictures of them. Between 12:30 and 14:00 local time.
Riga, 7 pm local time, an umbrella walked into the gallery carrying a well dressed somewhat tipsy man. He (the man) pointed to this picture and said (in a mix of Latvian, German, English and Russian) that this is not interesting at all.Riga. 7 pm local time. An umbrella walked into the gallery carrying a well dressed somewhat drunken man. He (the man) pointed to this picture and said (in a mix of Latvian, German and English) that it is not interesting at all.
He then gave me a long list of all the vintage cars he has collected and restored and he told of the precious medal he has won for one of his cars in Rostock. After that he listed all the important places he has been to – around the world, of course. He did not quite manage to accomplish his proud description of how fine a house he owns on the other side of the river because I had to answer a phone call.
Speaking of cars, this morning I placed my bumpy Citroen in a guarded parking lot. While paying for the service, the watchman bitterly told me how he “can’t understand why Latvia is in such dire straits, so many clever people we have. Here are no chances, no work. Here I sit all day long and all I see is cars. Only cars. This is no life.”
I am attending the gallery during the two last days of the exhibition. It is raining here in Riga. Umbrellas are passing by the window dragging people beneath. An hour can go before any of the umbrellas decide to take a look in. I feel curious sympathy with gallery supervisors.
Local time 3 pm. A girl is travelling by train from France to Japan and stops in Riga and ends up in the gallery. She accepts a copy of the Survival Handbook to accompany on her 8-day journey.
On Wednesday I will wrap up here and take the exhibition to Ventspils, to Jūras Vārti culture house. Opening on Friday, local time.
Hi. Long time no see. The summer has much gone preparing for the exhibition which was opened last Thursday. Vietējais Laiks (Local Time) will be open until September 29th in Gallery Carousell in Riga old town.
In the exhibition are shown projects Relating Latvia and If Nokia were a place… As a third, new project I published a Survival Handbook. Kārlis Vērpe wrote an essay and Zigmunds Lapsa made the design. The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art is the publisher. In Helsinki you can obtain the book from Kiasma shop, Photograhic Gallery Hippolyte, FMP bookshop and Gallery Luova.fi which also has an online bookshop.
Salo Art Museum opened their summer exhibition last Friday. Among many other artworks commenting farming, there’s a selection from Hay on The Highway – a joint project I accomplished with Yrjö Tuunanen in 1993.
Hundreds of free journalists protested against Sanoma News in Helsinki yesterday. The media house says they stop collaboration with free lancers who won’t sign the dictated new agreement. Sanoma News aims to take all known and unknown usage rights with syndication, selling further and manipulation rights to texts, photographs and illustrations for the price of a single publication, while leaving the free lancers alone juridically responsible.
Sanoma News is part of the Sanoma Group. The corporate altogether (with a 300 million euro operating profit) publishes over 300 European magazines and Finland’s two most read newspapers along with above ten other newspapers. They own the leading picture agency in Finland. In book publishing they are the Finnish market leader and significant europe-wise too. They have five TV stations and three radio stations in Finland. In the Baltics and Finland Sanoma Group is the market leader in press distribution, kiosks, cinema theatres etc.
It seems as the Finnish media emporium’s first aim is to deliver maximum profit for shareholders and to gain maximum grip over production and distribution of information – free journalism comes only after that. What else can you make of it?
A photo of myself was found and put in this blog’s “about” page. I just thought you might want to see who you’re dealing with.
In my previous post I told a few words about Lapua. Aside from the exhibition installation work I had some spare time to walk around the city; it must have been some twenty years from the previous time there. This wall arrangement in a flea-market was zealously preserving the core values of the White Finland: home, religion and fatherland. For those who don’t recognise the man in the framed print below Jesus: he is Marshal of Finland, C.G. Mannerheim. I felt like time had stopped long-ago, and I don’t mean just the antique clock on the wall. I had to double check that my own watch was running: it was indeed, and so I went out into the fresh autumn air.
Last week my exhibition If Nokia were a place… was opened in Lapua, at Ostrobothnian Photography Centre. This is the ending for a year of touring Finnish venues. Lapua city is 200 km north from Nokia city.
Lapua is known as a make of ammunition, a bit like Nokia is known as a mobile phone brand (and was previously known as a make of rubber boots). The factory in Lapua was the primary supplier of ammunition for the Finnish army during Winter War and World War II.
In 1976 a serious accidental explosion happened at the factory, killing 40 people. After this the factory has been moved away from the city centre, and the former plant converted to a cultural centre and named as Vanha Paukku (The Old Bang / Explosive Charge). That is where my Nokia series is now hanging.
When I had settled in Lapua, this sweat braking mural greeted me in the chill out room of my hotel sauna: two wrestlers locked in an embrace and large caliber gun cartridges lined up along the beds of Lapua river.
Lapua sits in the South Ostrobothnia flatlands. The region has played a big bang whenever the classes have clashed. During the 1918 Civil War (while Nokia was Red) the White army stronghold was up in the flatlands. In 1929, the violent anti-communist Lapua Movement started from here, eventually aiming for a fascist rule. In 1596 the Club War, the last peasant revolt in Europe started – from South Ostrobothnia. The peasants, armed with clubs, marched the 200 km to Nokia where they were defeated a week later. The school tableau below illustrates the peasant encampment in Nokia.
Picture above was taken in Nokia city, 2002.
