In April and May, 2022, 10 artists from 9 countries participated in two international artist residencies that took place at Rucka Artist Residency. They focused on the Latvian mythology, environmental issues, history and everyday life in Cesis, space exploration and experimental photography, as well as other related topics. Starting from June 9, the works created by the artists will be on display in the photo and installation exhibition “VISUMS” at the Cesis St. Anna’s church and art space MALA.

The photo and installation exhibition “VISUMS” is a glimpse into two separate places in Cesis – the former guard house of Cesis beer brewery and St. Anna’s Evangelical Lutheran Church – both have lost their function for years, were abandoned and now are opened to host the works of nine international artists. In April and May, 2022, two groups of artists each spent a month in Cesis, at the Rucka Artist Residency. During their stay, the artists went on exploratory walks with the curiosity of modern storytellers, excavating historical archives, looking for faces and encountering voices from the local community. Looking for evidence, getting acquainted with traditional beliefs and customs, creating a form to the change of seasons and unrest in the world, the artists took part in spring residency in Cesis and the life of the local community. With the findings, they returned to the photo lab to reveal the collected memories and document them in analogue photography, adapted in various media for display.

“VISUMSS” is a look into the modern Plato’s cave with the tools of analogue photography – a camera, a photo enlarger, the eye captures the shadows that are reflected on the walls of this cave, offering a reflection of the reality of the days affected by light. Nowadays, art is fragile, weakened by the pandemic, pushed out by the news stream of the war in Ukraine, reduced to an expensive commodity that can be discarded; art had to flee, find refuge, take over other spaces, non-spaces, meta-spaces. The two groups of artists, who each spent a month in Cesis in spring, were not given a theme, nor a task, nor a promised final exhibition at Rucka Artist Residency. However, during their stay, the artists left their comfortable cave and went into the outside world with the curiosity of modern storytellers, creating content for the exhibition”, the exhibition curator Alberto Di Gennaro explains.

Photo and installation exhibition “VISUMS” will be available free of charge to residents and guests of the Cesis from June 9 to July 19, 2022, from Thursday to Sunday from 12:00 p.m. to 8:00 p.m. in two locations – in St. Anna Church in Lielā Kalēju Street 6 and in the art space MALA, Lenču Street 11. The authors of the exhibition works are nine foreign artists who stayed at the Rucka Artist Residency – Victor Drouineau (France), Paola Favoino (Italy), Julia Forrest (USA), Zoe Harodi (Israel), Anna Krieps (Luxembourg), Alexandra Krolikowska (Ukraine), David Gabriel Moreno (USA), Lucas Riewe (Germany), Christopher Wittine (Austria). Exhibition curator: Alberto Di Gennaro. Organized by Rucka Art Foundation with the financial support of the State Cultural Capital Foundation and the support of the Embassy of Israel in Latvia and art space MALA.