The Art Academy of Latvia announces the establishment of the new Institute of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture (LMDA) with it's first public online event as a prologue of institute's activities – research showcase and public discussion Navigating the New Territories. 

The conversation will bring together researchers and practitioners from varied fields aiming to establish common grounds and debate on how to approach and navigate “the new territories'' of creative, multidimensional, experimental and cross-disciplinary research that connects the worlds of science, technology, arts and culture to develop new theories, methods and search for unprecedented collaboration forms.

The first part of the event will showcase the background and research directions of the recently appointed international LMDA researchers team – architect and educator Eva Sommeregger (PhD), architect and designer Liene Jākobsone, architect Dietmar Koering (PhD), architect Dina Suhanova and art historian Māra Traumane.

The presentations will be followed by the discussion together with the invited colleagues and partners of the institute: Art Academy of Latvia Vice-Rector for Academic Affairs Antra Priede, architects and creative minds behind the new Professional Master's program in Architecture Austris Mailītis and Niklāvs Paegle, researcher of folklore, life stories and digital humanities at the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia Sanita Reinsone, environmental activist and social anthropologist Agita Pusvilka, artistic research scholar, AAL Guest Associate Professor and Editorial Board Member of the Journal for Artistic Research (JAR)  Manuel Ángel Macía and researcher of the University of Latvia, Faculty of Geography and Earth Sciences, Department of Environmental Sciences Vaira Obuka.

The event will be held online in English and will be live-streamed on Facebook from 17.00 to 19.00 (EEST). Attend it by following this link: LINK

The main activity of the institute is related to the development of applied and fundamental research in the fields of contemporary art, design and architecture in Latvia and the broader international context. LMDA aims to ensure the exchange of knowledge and ideas on a local and global scale. By creating a network of international collaboration partners, the institute seeks to identify and interpret current cultural phenomena, creating an interdisciplinary environment for the synergy of knowledge and research in between the fields of humanities, social and natural sciences, and technology.