In its very core Savvaļa is meant to be a place to meet for all different kinds of creatives with diverse backgrounds, a place for different art, ideas, friendships, discussions. It's a place with almost utopian vision to be always open to creatives and give an opportunity to find a shelter in one's silence in close-to-nature simplicity of obstacles and comfort to think, to create, to be alone or otherwise - to meet others (maybe strangers at that point) to find probably new and unexpected thoughts, discoveries and solutions. The program's aim is to nourish a professional cross-disciplinary art and culture and to create a platform for experimental thought. Residing on site is also at the core of Savvaļa exhibition - all of the artists resided in Savvaļa before creating their works, during the creation or installation and/or following years while refining them.
Since the beginning of Savvaļa in 2020 it hosted residencies for both individuals and groups, such as summer schools, camps, gatherings, public discussions etc. During the first season residencies were a part of exhibition creation e.g. most of the artists resided in Savvaļa to create their works and as part of "Savvaļas burtnīca", a poetic documentation project by Henriks Eliass Zēgners and e-journal Satori.lv. "Savvaļas burtnīca" resulted in a printed limited edition available for free in Savvaļa and Rīga and was a combination between poetry, texts and visual art and photography. Second season of Savvaļa continued with joint Savvaļa and culture organization "Ascendum" residency project "Savvaļas darbnīcas" which hosted cross-disciplinary creatives with open workshops during their residencies in Savvaļa. There was also second and to this point the last edition of "Savvaļas butnīca" created. Starting with the third season Savvaļa created a residency program "Savvaļas skiti", which hosted each season local and international creatives, whose residencies resulted in their own well-being, bright ideas and sometimes if they wish - in concerts, performances, exhibitions, readings, discussions and even movies and films. During these years alongside individuals a group residencies also are happening, for instance Summer school session for Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, AAL Arhitecture School camp, different writing camps, somatic practices camps, annual Summer school of Curatorial course of Latvian Academy of Arts and many others.
“Skete of Savvaļa” is one of the three working directions of Savvaļa, the other two being exhibition and public programme. Run by artist-cultural professional collective it is unique by its location, principle of organization and experience it gives to its visitors. All three directions of Savvaļa support one another and work well internally by residing artists participation in public program or creating works for exhibition; public programme participants can meet residing artists or during weekend-long public program activities artists, participants and visitors mingle and create new networks. Due to communal spaces, common living conditions and unique location of this site friendships and collaborations are easily formed between people who happen to meet each other in this location. It is therefore even more important for us not only bring local artists to Savvaļa, but also expand our network and find possibilities to bring more international artists and creatives to Savvaļa to reside and create new collaborations and network possibilities for both Latvian artists and for foreign artists to meet locals. Applications are individually discussed via e-mail: savvala.biedriba@gmail.com.
Below is the archive with selections from previous residencies.
In June Savvaļa initiaded and hosted a residency Collective Practice curated by Artūrs Čukurs and Ada Ruskiewicz and led by Sylwia Mieczkowska and Anna Majewska with international participants from Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, France and the Netherlands.
Made possible with a financial support of State Culture Capital foundation (VKKF)
Photographed collectively by participants.
Musician and climate activist Alise Golovacka resided in Savvaļa in August 2024 to record her debut album "Orbitrons". You can watch and listen to one of the songs, But You're Mine, here:
I heard that the best way to motivate people is through stories. “Orbitrons” is my musical story, with the help of which I try to be a climate activist - through my compositions I talk about the relationship between man and nature, the Earth, about our responsibilities and the inevitable attachment to this planet. Orbitron's first single “Epilogue” has already been released, but the rest of the album is still on the way - I can't think of a better place than Savvaļa to be in the middle of nature and invite it to participate in the creation of an Orbitron record. I am the composer, flutist and bassist of Orbitron's music, and I play this story together with great musicians - pianist Edgars Cīrulis, trumpeter Reinis Puriņš, guitarist Sven Vilsons, bassist Aigars Reiters and drummer Rūdolfs Daņiļevičs.
Savvaļa is hosting two musicians for a residency at the moment: Elīna Viļuma-Helling & Jacob Helling.
"Our, Elīna’s and Jakob’s, residency deals with communication. Communication between ancient and contemporary music. Communication between composed melodies and free flow. We’ll be trying to figure out how to communicate our ideas best with the audience at the end of the residency. Trying to become aware of what souls that aren’t phisically reachable want to tell us, and how they can communicate through our artform."
At the end of their residency on August 11 there was an intimate and unique concert held in Savvaļa.
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Elīna Viļuma-Helling is a singer from Latvia based in Vienna. After graduating from the Cathedral Choir School in Riga, she moved to Graz, where she studied jazz singing and composition. While still studying composition, she realized that she had developed a great love for contemporary music. Since then, she has felt equally at home in jazz and contemporary music. She has since performed, among other works, Beat Furrer's "Spacio Immergente" at the Radio Kulturhaus Vienna, Bernhard Lang's "DW16" at the Austrian Cultural Forum in London, various compositions at the "Impuls 2019" and "Klang-nach-Seide-Biennale Graz 2018" festivals, and Beat Furrer's opera "Begehren" as part of the vocal ensemble "Cantando Admont" at the Salzburg Festival.
Jakob Helling, born 1990 in Bielefeld, Germany, is a composer, arranger and trumpet player currently based in Vienna, Austria. He dedicates a big part of his work writing music for various ensembles such as his “Jakob Helling Concert Big Band”, he plays trumpet as live musican / in TV productions and in the studio as well as conducting and/or producing for artists such as Sarah McKenzie, Jim Rotondi or Marianne Mendt.
For the third year in a row, the Latvian Academy of Arts’ Curatorship Summer School is taking place as part of the Savvaļas Skiti Residency Program, led by Vice-Rector and Curator Course Leader of the Art Academy Antra Priede, curator Andris Brinkmanis, and creative producer Kitija Vasiļjeva. Special thanks to this year’s guests, curator Jonatan Habib Engqvist (Sweden), the Kemmler Foundation team from Germany - Patrik Gräb, Hanna Yael, and Friedemann Heckel, as well as guest artist Joëlle Laederach for sharing their knowledge, experience, and creating a safe space in which to think, create, and imagine.
Photo: Kate Švinka
This event is part of program SPACE co-funded by the European Union program Creative Europe. Additionally co-funded by The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia and State Culture Capital Foundation (VKKF)
Project "SPACE: Sustainable Production for Artistic Communities in Europe" is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
In July, the movement artists Emīlija Berga and Vladimirs Goršantovs from the contemporary dance company SIXTH were in residence at Savvaļa, where they worked on developing their movement material for the performance evening Sometimes I Do Something.
The members of SIXTH — Emīlija Berga, Ģirts Dubults and Vladimirs Goršantovs — together with the scenography collective 4K have created an evening of three short solo performances that explore the search for and realization of human identity in its many diverse forms.
Vladimirs Goršantovs
Emīlija Berga
Photo: Aleksejs Beļeckis
Exactly 300 km from Savvaļa, in the forest lies a boat just like the one in Savvaļa, entangled in trees, surrounded by grass and small bushes. It is not clear how it ended up here. The nearest coast is more than 100 kilometers away. The size of the boat and the inscription “Mazirbe” indicate that it was used for sea fishing. Since the deck boards have partially disappeared, the frame of the boat is visible. It resembles the rotting, long-dead body of a forest beast. But this is not the end. The wreck of the boat has become a place to spend the night. It is possible to understand how this boat ended up here in your sleep. I have heard stories about incredible rainstorms that washed the boat here, and there are also stories about a fisherman who could not leave his boat, so he dragged it with him until he lost strength and had to leave it in the thick of the forest.
Oto's work was created as one of the artwork series co-produced between Savvaļa and Wild Bits as part of program SPACE - Sustainable Production for Artistic Communities in Europe co-funded by the European Union program Creative Europe. Savvaļa's fifth season resident artist sculptor Oto Holgers Ozoliņš created the work "Mazirbe - Savvaļa 300 km" in the frame of the visual art program "Shelter", initiated and curated by Andris Eglītis. Several authors were invited to create various inhabitable works of art. Thinking about the various possible relationships between the viewer and the artwork, these works invite you to experience them for a long time, perhaps even to the afterlife. At the same time, "Shelter" responds to Savvaļa's characteristic of being an inspiring place for residencies, which is why these works of art are created within the framework of artist residencies and also serve as accommodations for visitors and residents, encouraging a more transcendental experience.
ARTWORK PRODUCTION PROCESS
The first step in creating an artwork in Savvaļa is to find a location for it. It is a vast territory of land filled with forests, meadows, ponds and swamps - artworks are usually located on trails, in easily accessible meadows or nearby base camp (where lodgings are located). In this case the artist wanted to find a more secluded place but still near the base so that this artwork could be used for staying overnight and would not be too remote. It is located just by the entrance in the forest and a new entrance path was created to make it visible and accessible.
The artist created an on-site construction workshop in order to be able to build the artwork there making it entirely site-specific - building it into the surrounding forest and adjusting it to the natural setting. Artworks in Savvaļa stay for several seasons and integrate in the surrounding landscape - weather and live through various seasons, continuously changing and evolving. The division between nature-made and human-made intertwines and grows into one another.
The material choices are often influenced by the location - wood, metal, clay, soil, upcycled plastic or fabric are the materials most often used in artwork productions. In this case the artist used wood that has been cut in a nearby wood workshop (from locally sourced trees, after forest cleaning in the winter) at the beginning of the season by Savvaļa technical team (April/May 2024). The wood was then covered in tar in order to ensure longevity of this work. The roof was an upcycled sail from a boat.
In artwork production in Savvaļa an important part is an experience for the artist to work in this wild natural setting and create an artwork within it to see how it differs from their usual practice when working in a workshop (usually in a well equipped setting). Oto also reported that this has been the most valuable part of the process which allowed him to re-evaluate his practice.
Photo: Aleksejs Beļeckis
This event is part of program SPACE co-funded by the European Union program Creative Europe. Additionally co-funded by The Ministry of Culture of the Republic of Latvia and State Culture Capital Foundation (VKKF).
Project "SPACE: Sustainable Production for Artistic Communities in Europe" is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
UNDOING 01: Rest research for burnt-out artists and creative professionals residency took place from June 29 to July 5, 2024 and was designed as a seven-day immersive residency led by artists Agnese Krivade and Lindon Satoru Shimizu. The residency’s core concept is centered around the exploration of rest as an integral component of creative practice. Artists and creative professionals were invited to engage in a collective and introspective process aimed at deconstructing the culture of over-productivity that often permeates the arts and cultural sectors.
This initiative challenges the commodification of rest by fostering a radical practice of doing nothing, inspired by black queer feminist theories on “Rest as Resistance”. The residency balanced individual rest with collective activities, emphasizing embodiment and recovery without the pressure to produce tangible outcomes. Participants were provided with private huts or rooms in the wilderness, vegetarian meals, and a structured yet flexible program ranging from silent reflection and contemporary somatics to experiential anatomy, contemporary dance and group discussions.
UNDOING 01 welcomed 14 participants and creative professionals from Latvia, Estonia, Sweden, Finland, Germany, and Lithuania - this diversity of participants were enabled by SPACE consortium partners sharing open calls in their communication channels. Including artists, choreographers, dancers, writers, producers and other cultural professionals from across Europe. The residency aimed for a balanced representation of genders, artistic disciplines and geographies emphasizing inclusivity and sensitivity to various identities and energy levels. Led by artists Agnese Krivade and Lindon Shimizu, the aim of the residency was to build a sharedcollective practice to review the ways we "produce" cultural content and seek new forms of creative activity and daily rhythm. Residency participants recognized this as one of the most important and transformative experiences in recent times. As this residency was highly valuable for all involved parties (project partners, organizers, hosting artists and participating professionals) UNDOING will continue in 2025 as part of the SPACE project.
This project is financed by:
Project "SPACE: Sustainable Production for Artistic Communities in Europe" is funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or the European Education and Culture Executive Agency (EACEA). Neither the European Union nor EACEA can be held responsible for them.
The workshop/exhibition of color pigment extracting from natural materials at the residency program “Skete of Savvaļa” by Inga Meldere and Mikko Hintz, open-air exhibition place Savvaļa. Artwork location - venue place “White Cube”. Dates: July 16 and throughout the summer of 2023.
But it was in vain that I lingered before the hawthorns, to breathe in, to marshal! before my mind (which knew not what to make of it), to lose in order to rediscover their invisible and unchanging odour, to absorb myself in the rhythm which disposed their flowers here and there with the light-heartedness of youth, and at intervals as unexpected as certain intervals of music; they offered me an indefinite continuation of the same charm, in an inexhaustible profusion, but without letting me delve into it any more deeply, like those melodies which one can play over a hundred times in succession without coming any nearer to their secret. In this fragment, the young hero of Proust’s novel Du côté de chez Swann (or “Swan’s Way” in English translation) is trying to communicate with the blossoming hawthorns. But he can’t get the message, maybe because Western culture has ignored non-human beings, animals, and plants for so long.
Plants may acquire artistic agency in collaboration with artists who are attentive and eager to engage in more-than-human relationships. An example of such an attitude and attentiveness to local Latvian plants is the creative workshop/exhibition of color pigment extraction from natural materials by Inga Meldere and Mikko Hintz. It also means the change of our human subjectivity, or, using the words of Rosi Braidotti from her book “The Posthuman,” As a brand of vital materialism, posthuman theory contests the arrogance of anthropocentrism and the ‘exceptionalism’ of the Human as a transcendental category. It strikes instead an alliance with the productive and immanent force of zoe, or life in its non-human aspects. This requires a mutation of our shared understanding of what it means to think at all, let alone think critically. To think at all or to think artistically and in a participatory way here means to engage in the process of extracting pigments from natural everyday materials, like trees, mushrooms, vegetables, and flowers. It questions the notion of male genius, which is the artistic counterpart of heroic political action, and challenges the myth of art production as a realm of magical authorship, connoisseur expertise, and techniques available only to “true masters”. There are no pictures hanging on the walls of a museum as a white cube – the white cube here is a tent in the wild, and the work table for pigment extraction is the true artwork.
Text: Jānis Taurens
Photos: Aleksejs Beļeckis
Support: Vidzeme planing region, VKKF, Frame Contemporary Finland
"Holy Hole" – result of the residency by interdisciplinary artist Henrijs Laķiss in collaboration with musician Andrejs Poikāns. A comprehensive performance of sound and analogue video projections in which an international group of sonologists and artists participated – Wilf Amis (England), Riccardo Ancona (Italy), Dima Ibrahim (Germany), Valentin Kellein (Germany), Amos Peled (Israel), Sintija Andersone (Latvia).
Musicians Matīss Čudars, Evija Vēbere, Elīna Silova and Ivars Arutyunyan, who have been visible in various jazz and contemporary experimental music ensembles as one of the strongest composers, songwriters and performers of Latvia in recent years, resided in Savvaļa, setting up a rehearsal and the recording studio in the Grey Cube. The music composed in Savvaļa was presented at the intimate concert at the end of the residency and a year later the recordings of this music were used in the documentary "Umbra" by Aleksejs Beļeckis. In the meantime artists Sabīne Vernere, Aleksejs Beļeckis and Andris Eglītis participated in the annual painting residency. As one of the central event happened was an immersive installation by Andris Eglitis on a pond, which took all of the residents to participate in the creation of paintings by Eglītis that later on were part of his solo shows.
A 56 hours long residence and performance of film director Stanislav Tokalov and architect and painter Egija Smeile (Latvia).
"In a grove of trees, out in the pristine countryside, for seven days eight hours a day and in silence using a shovel a man digs a pit in the ground with the hope of finding truth.
Around the pit, eleven cut-down tree trunks stand in a circle, mute witnesses, hostages of the event.
Humans dig holes when they want to grow something or build a house, create a pond but when they want to hide something or want to bury something they dig, too. If you know or think that something is buried you dig to find it. You might find a fossil, a bone that belonged to a living creature or something closer to your own space and time.
The trees surrounding this work are the permanent spectators, other witnesses, the ones who were here, are here now and will be here when the artists depart. In this case we dig to find truth, to dig down to it, to find what it is. And as Gotthold Ephraim Lessing said, “The truth itself is not interesting, but the search for it”. We are not sure if that is true.
All the participants: the cut-down tree trunks, the encircling trees and the viewing public are waiting, waiting…"
Artist duo Flo Kasearu (Estonia) and Elīna Vītola (Latvia) resided in Savvaļa at different times during the summer of 2022, creating the work "Sick" with the opening of the erected monument in Savvaļa on August 13, 2022.
"We erected statues, monuments of greatness and glory, commemorating war, victories over others – "bloodsucking parasites" – like there was any victories to begin with! Only loss, on either end. We carried accomplishments like badges, pierced through our chests; the powerfulness of an individual seemingly more important than our communities.
That’s sick."
Sick is a life-sized, bronze sculpture of a tick, taking two forms. Ticks are ectoparasites, living on the surface of its hosts and feed on their blood. As ticks do, Sick latches itself on to the surface of a wooden sculpture and on to the skin of a human as a microdermal piercing. Small but resistant, it outwits and outlasts. There is a sense of taking over nature taking over: bronze as a material and the parasitic strategy of a tick resists the unpredictable forces of nature.
Body modification such as piercings, are an act of resistance, a token of collectivity: a symbol of being part of a chosen community. Carrying surgical steel in and on our bodies is perhaps deviant to nature, even if our bodies are endlessly modified by nature within and outside our skins. Control comes in specifically with the human-centric urge to outplay the more-than-human conditions of our lives, through modification of human and non-human bodies and landscapes.
Sick is an implant, that both belongs and creates fear.
Sick is a monument, as is the skin you live in.
Annual Summer school residence by students of the Curatorial course of the Latvian Art Academy under the leadership of Antra Priede, Kitija Vasiļjeva and Andris Brinkmanis. In 2022 the main summer school focus was on the first curatorial lexicon in Latvian.
Four interdisciplinary Latvian artists – Artūrs Čukurs, Henrijs Laķis, Gerds Lapoška and Kirilis Ēcis resided in Savvaļa in July 2021. The result – performance "Kādas ainavas inventarizācija" ("Inventory of a landscape") – took place in the central base of Savvaļa and a written version of it was published in the second edition of the "Savvaļa notebook" and depicted in documentaru "Umbra".
"The work was created by four young artists experiencing, observing and describing "wild" nature and all the processes taking place within it, the cycles of these processes and their mutual links. Similar to Georges Perek's textual practice in the work "An Attempt at Exhausting a Place in Paris", this work is an observer's effort to create a spatial map of the landscape, anticipating both his absence and his presence and participation in it."
A group residency and an open workshop of traditional painting techniques led by the artist Aleksejs Beļeckis, which covers priming and preparation of wooden bases intended for painting and the basics of egg tempera painting. Participants of residence also shared their own painting techniques and worked on their own works. The results were shown as one-day exhibition and poetry reading in Savvaļa Pit.
Finnish artist Kristi Kongi resided in Savvaļa in July 2020.
She created a painting installation "To hide yourself. Is there any light left? Lemon yellow? Golden Ochre? Magenta? Where are you now?" "A site-specific painting object, based on light. The viewer can hide or find oneself in the shadow of this object. The object is like a screen and also like a wall. A wall inside the forest between man and nature. Between me and you. The wall panels consist of details around us. Details are from the place where the object is located. Painted with both enamel and with oil paints."
Finnish artist Teemu Korpela resided in Savvaļa in July 2021.
He created an installation "Intercourse Between Two Worlds". "This work ponders the psychological friction between our biological base as animals and the ideal that we call human. The visual concept of the installation comes from beehives and different architectural and geometrical forms."
Lithuanian artist Žilvinas Landzbergas was one of the first residents in Savvaļa, working on site in June 2020.
He created a sculptural installation "Solar Karaoke Platform / Singing with Myself". "This work is inviting to enjoy individual Karaoke sessions in the woods. Set of mirroring sculptural elements create an environment landscape with a stage for individual performing. A visitor or a spectator (or a random mushroom) could find oneself being present for a moment as main character on a Karaoke stage. Without much audience involved, there will be woods and swamps surrounding you performing live."
Latvian architect Austris Mailītis is one of the "returning residents" – participating, creating and contributing regularly since the very beginning of Savvaļa. He has created the installation "Wind watchers", built the Savvaļa sauna on the pond, curated discussions and led volunteer action and residing in Savvaļa each year.
Photo: Reinis Hofmanis. Portrait of Austris Mailītis: Dāvis Doršs
