A conference dedicated to performance studies, visuality, and materiality will take place

An international academic conference titled "Embodied Visions: Performativity, Visuality, Materiality" will take place in Riga, focusing on space, form, material, and movement in the visual and performing arts during the 1960s to 1980s.

This interdisciplinary conference will bring together scholars of performance art and practicing artists from the Baltic Sea region, as well as from the Netherlands, the United States, and the United Kingdom. A special highlight of the program is a one-hour keynote lecture dedicated to Latvian artist Modris Tenisons and his work with the Kaunas pantomime troupe, presented by Edgaras Klivis, Lithuanian theatre scholar and Artistic Director of the Kaunas National Drama Theatre. This will be followed by a presentation from Valentinas Odnoviunas, curator at the Šiauliai Photography Museum, on the collaboration between photographer Vitas Luckus and the Kaunas pantomime troupe.

The late Soviet period will also be explored in several other presentations. For example, Sam Čermák, art historian from the University of Manchester, will discuss performances in Bratislava’s urban space during the 1970s—an era in which experimental and unofficial art was declared illegal following the Prague Spring and the introduction of normalization policies. Laine Kristberga, art scholar, will analyze sculptor Ojārs Feldbergs’s 1989 performance “Ordinary Stone”, considered one of the few openly politically critical performances in Latvian art history, addressing Soviet mass deportations.

On the second day of the conference, May 28, a special session will be devoted to costume and its performative agency. The session will open with a keynote by Charlotte Østergaard, Danish artist and researcher. This will be followed by Franciska Bork Petersen, Associate Professor at the University of Copenhagen, who will examine the multisensory impact of dance costuming, while artist Laura Feldberga will reflect on clothing as a medium of memory, family ties, and performativity.

The language of the conference is English.
The full conference programme is available online.

The conference is organized by the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia (UL ILFA) in cooperation with the Latvian Centre for Performance Art, as part of the project “Latvia’s Cultural Ecosystem as a Resource for National Resilience and Sustainability” (CERS, 2023–2026).

The event will be held on May 27–28 at the Paul Stradiņš Museum of the History of Medicine in Riga, and is part of the international performance art festival "Starptelpa".
More about the festival’s history and current programme: www.rigaperformancefestival.com