Savvala nomadic artist residency
Participating artists: Paula Zvane, Viktorija Björk (IS), Kamilė Pikelytė, Enea Toldo (CH), Marta Luna Valpiana (IT), Vilhjálmur Yngvi Hjálmarsson, Alexis Brancaz, Eetu Vekki (FI), Albertina Tevajärvi (FI/UK), Inessa Saarits (EE), Pui-Yan Fong (DE) and others.
Nomadic Residency
Working title of the exhibition: I WILL SHOW YOU A TOAD TONIGHT
Venue: The Cube nr 4. Gallery and its surroundings
This exhibition brings together a collective of artists who spent time immersed in the wild landscapes of Savvaļa—a unique open-air exhibition space in Latvia, initiated by Andris Eglītis. The project began as a residency in late August 2023, when the participants gathered to live, create, and interact in this untouched environment for nearly two weeks.
Artists from Italy, France, Switzerland, Iceland, Finland, Lithuania, and Latvia explored the interplay between human presence and nature, drawing inspiration, materials, and even food from the surrounding environment. They challenged themselves to live outdoors and to adapt their artistic practices to the specificity of the residency site. From this arose the idea of a nomadic residency—one that investigates the diversity and accessibility of natural materials in the Baltic and Nordic landscapes, with a focus on how such resources can be used both for collaborative art-making and for creating shared culinary works, with food as a unifying element.
Through their works, the artists reveal the depth of Latvia’s wild textures and rhythms. The exhibition serves as a dialogue with the land, transforming the tangible and the fleeting into works that explore slowness, tenderness, and transformation. Found objects, clay, charred wood, and organic materials are woven into narratives that echo the bogs, forests, and expanses of the Savvaļa territory—each from the artist’s perspective, with particular resonance in the fact that for most of the international participants, this was their first-ever encounter with Latvia’s nature. Such a nomadic creative experience is truly unique and unprecedented for many of the artists involved.
The exhibition also embodies the spirit of community that emerged during the residency—shared meals, thunderstorms, and the nocturnal sounds of birds and deer became an essential part of the creative process. Each work offers a fragment of this lived journey, inviting viewers into the intimate and unpredictable relationships between artists and nature.
Looking ahead, the vision is to develop a series of residencies and to seek other Nordic and Baltic sites for wild material research—bringing forth visual, sonic, and culinary artworks created from the raw means of the surrounding environment.
