On Friday 8th October, the Art Academy of Latvia’s experimental art space ‘Pilot’ will open an exhibition titled ‘Memories See Us’, which will feature eight student works exploring the theme of individual and collective memory.

The exhibition is organised as part of the EU4ART Alliance initiative, which aims to strengthen fine arts education programmes in the European Union member states. EU4ART is an ongoing collaborative project between the art academies in Riga, Rome, Budapest, and Dresden that was started in 2019. The project’s main goal is to create a common curriculum in the disciplines of painting, sculpture, and graphic art so that in the future students can combine and carry out their studies in several EU countries and have the opportunity to earn an international degree. In the long term, implementing such a system will help increase the competitiveness of European universities on an international level.

This autumn, all of EU4ART’s partner institutions are holding student exhibitions dedicated to the theme of memory.  Artists from each country had the opportunity to reflect about personally significant aspects of historical events and their various interpretations, as well as to explore the phenomenon of fictional memory and how it is created. Given the broad scope of the topic, students could both create novel works of art or identify thematically relevant aspects within already existing pieces.

‘The ambiguity, necessity, and inexplicable nature of memory – the tension between these elements is captured in the eight works submitted by AAL’s students for the EU4ART exhibition. The markedly different artists explore their own and others’ memories on an individual, national, regional, international, and transcendental level, using different techniques, genres, and skills specific to their level of education. Though different, they all seem to be motivated by at least one common goal, namely – to understand, bring order, and, if I may say so, find some meaning in the strange phenomenon of the past coexisting with the present within one’s mind, a past that is often not our own,’ says Helmuts Caune, the exhibition’s text author.

The eight exhibition participants were chosen from a number of applicants who took part in a competition that was held this summer. Among them are bachelor, master, and doctoral level students.

The exhibition features works by Anna Pommere, Kintija Avena, Ivo Krieviņš, Egons Peršēvics, Anete Grīnberga, Laima Graždanoviča, Kristiana Švābe, and Atis Izands.

The exhibition is open from 12:00 – 18:00 (Tuesdays to Saturdays) at the AAL’s experimental art space ‘Pilot’ on Riharda Vāgnera Street 3, Riga. The exhibition will remain open for viewing from 8th October until 10th November.

Exhibition supports by Erasmus+ and Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia