Inga Lāce will focus on several of her recent projects through which a shift in the focus in research and art processes within the Latvian art scene is revealed.
The first one, “Revisiting Footnotes: Footprints of the Recent Past in the Postsocialist Region,” focuses on the country in the 1990s and 2000s and traces remnants from the socialist past in the public space, popular culture, and art in Latvia as a connection point with other postsocialist places. The second, titled "Portable Landscapes," traces and contextualizes Latvian artists' emigration and exile throughout the twentieth century. Following the lifelines of a number of artistic protagonists, the series explores the major centers of the Latvian diaspora: Paris, New York, West Berlin, Montreal, and the Swedish island of Gotland. By relating individual stories and chapters of migration to a common network situated within the broader context of twentieth-century art history and wider processes of migration and globalization, the project aims to create an understanding of our contemporary world that is informed by these historical events. The shift of focus from the postsocialist condition to migration connects the local Latvian art scene to a broader set of current concerns and changes in the world, opening up a wide array of new concerns. Also, during her talk Lāce will question how certain artistic and curatorial projects mirror aspirations of region building within the Baltics, and vice versa.