The Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art, curated by Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel

The 2020 Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art is a somewhat unsettling experience. Exploring the nature around us, our chaotic and exhilarating inner lives, through the works of over 50 artists, "witnessing a planet in agony" (Rebecca Lamarche-Vadel), the sense of loss we navigate does not only stem from the death or end of "the world as we know it", but also the loss of something dear, something familiar.

What do we put in that empty place when something is gone?

The 50 artworks installed throughout the 20 hectares of the Biennial project create a beautiful and devastating atmosphere for us to follow characters - the many artists involved - as they play an emotional hide-and-seek. Looking for answers as well as questions in dark surprising places.

What we see is not about a defeated world, but rather a world in a pause, a crossroads, that only "itself" can see. Us humans are somewhat left out of the equation. The artworks are intimate with themselves; intimacies are raw but not always truthful. These are stories of adaption.

Anastasia Sosunova

It is a strange thing

In a strange time

To be a stranger

To ones own hands

Hanne Lippard

I always feel that when we meet

we say that we should meet

soon but then life always

becomes so b

u

s

y

Hanne Lippard

The stories are dirty, brilliant, painfully human, fast, and strangely sensual. They seem pulled from somewhere between a drunken phone call and a half-forgotten childhood dream.