Liene Pavlovska

1. 

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5
   • 6
   

   

   

   

   

   

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5
   • 6

   Photos: Arta Kauliņa

2. 

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   

   

   

   

   • 1
   • 2
   • 3
   • 4

   Photos: Andrejs Strokins

3. When I Walk in Boots I Found
   Vidzemes market, during International Contemporary Theatre Festival Homo Novus 2021, Riga, LV, September 8-18, 2021

   At the International Contemporary Theatre festival Festival centre in Vidzemes Market, I worked within the uneven grounds of design and personal storytelling. With this work, I continued artistic research started at the Helsinki International Artist Programme, where I explored local spatial configurations and spatial restrictions related to the concepts of periphery and the centre, planning and scale, ambiguity and particularity and how architecture makes me feel. At Vidzemes Market I worked towards a 1:1 scale model, combining elements and tools from theatre and cinema to create a moment of togetherness, a pause, a play. The situation inquires what constitutes the real, and what the desirable?  I spent time in the market, teleporting myself back to my childhood memories of it - busy, filled with tastes, smells and illegal music. Afterwards, I made scale models within a studio, inspired by my emotions. Images of those got transferred on translucent fabrics. The space at the market was as an unfinished scale model, surrounded by scaled up spatial models.

4. 

   • 1
   

   • 1

   Collage Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers for LOW gallery publication Crisis Herald, issue 1, curated and published by LOWERS @LOW gallery, 2020

   For most of summer 2020, I spent in the forest in the East of Latvia. I stayed in a hut made as a dwelling house using materials that the previous inhabitant scavenged within surrounding areas after the war. The house is on the land parents of my grand grandmother received from Baltic German landlords after new laws allowed Latvian peasants to own the land. My grandmother returned to the forest after receiving it back via denationalization processes after the collapse of the Soviet Union and created a self-built universe. Her mother left a life in Saint Petersburg to fulfil her dreams of owning the land. Now the forest is abandoned again.
   In summer 2020, I built a large scale model using materials found on the ruins on the land, thinking of the place that is created not only by physical volumes but even more so - by unfulfilled desires and broken dreams by women of my family. The forest sharply represents not only my family but also regional history. Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers - local expression to describe the place where all desires come true. For Crisis Herald by Low gallery, Riga, I stitched together images of the model.

5. 

   Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   • 1

     Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   • 2

      

   • 3

      

   • 4

      

   

   Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   

    

   

    

   

    

   • 1

     Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   • 2

      

   • 3

      

   • 4

      
6. 

   Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   • 1

     Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   • 2

      

   • 3
   • 4
   

   Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   

    

   

   

   • 1

     Photos: Arta Kauliņa

   • 2

      

   • 3
   • 4

   Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers, episode 2
   TIK, Riga, LV, July 22 -August 19, 2020
   
   

   The show “Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers” was created around the interest about the formation of representations of collective desires and how narratives of past, present and future manifest and are constructed in a conditional urban environment, particularly looking at what is in common within the Soviet past and capitalistic future in the Baltics. I was looking for features in the urban environment similar to the performance creation process. I was exploring interest in the roles of actor and spectator and the changeable margin between them. I was viewing ideology as a metaphoric theatre director. The show was developed as an experiential route and multimedia installation, with a close relationship with the surrounding architecture, emphasizing its histories. 

   The show included works that are created in collaboration with photographer Mirko Podkowik, choreographer Sintija Siliņa.
   Actresses: Inga Raudinga, Dita zariņa-Aigare, Naomi Credé, Elisa Grasso

   Documentation: Arta Kauliņa

7. Close Your Eyes and Smile

   

   Photo: Pēteris Vīksna

   • 1

     Photo: Pēteris Vīksna

   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5
   

   Photo: Pēteris Vīksna

   

   

   

   

   • 1

     Photo: Pēteris Vīksna

   • 2
   • 3
   • 4
   • 5
8. 

   Photos: Ansis Starks

   • 1

     Photos: Ansis Starks

   • 2

      

   • 3

      

   • 4

      

   

   Photos: Ansis Starks

   

    

   

    

   

    

   • 1

     Photos: Ansis Starks

   • 2

      

   • 3

      

   • 4

      

   Close Your Eyes and Smile

   Solo show at kim? Contemporary Art Center
   Riga, Latvia, August 22 - October 10, 2019

   Installation "Close Your Eyes and Smile" was an exploration of individual and group responsibility. It also draws from the structures of lottery game shows and similarities between those and election processes. I am interested in how ideologies uphold the myth of luck alive to maintain the order, looking at the society where my mother grew up - Soviet state, a totalitarian regime with a state-led economy and looking for similarities what the past ideology have in common with the current one. Drawing visual language from my mother's workplaces - Soviet shop ( various ) and Bank ( various ) during 90ties, I created a rather uncomfortable space, hoping for a visitor to change ( to trash ) it.

   The first room of the show had the title "Production space". It had a clerk table, election box ( with magical sounds hidden within ), curtained voting corner. The second room of the show had the title "Consumption". It had two stages that hosted a mirrored wheel of fortune and a fish tank with two goldfish. A fence divided the room, and its bastions hosted melted and poured tin - for luck. There were several embroidered chairs, made to be felt when one would sit on them, rather than be seen.There was a performance happening at the opening and finissage of the show. Performers were slowly presenting the mythical objects of luck, it was visible that performers are tired, annoyed by the objects. At the finale, the performer who has been quietly sitting at a clerks table appeared and sang iconic Latvian composer Emīls Dārziņš and poet Jānis Poruks composition Close Your Eyes and Smile, that I used as a title for the show. The main character of the song is begging ( demanding ) his lover to melt her soul with him and to head towards dreamlike shores.

   Staged sculptural gestures interacted with visitors' viewpoints, questioning when the moment to step up on the stage will come?
   
   As a joyful finale- I found several chewing gums underneath the chairs, and hidden coins, left in the space for luck.

   
   The performance made together with: Arta Kauliņa, Baiba Vanaga, Janīna Guterman
   Close Your Eyes and Smile hosted a video work by artist Mirko Podkowik.
   Finnisage of the show hosted edible intervention by artist Niels Albers.

   Documentation: Pēteris Vīksna, Ansis Starks

   
   
   

9. Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers

   

   Photos: Francesca Lucchitta

   • 1

     Photos: Francesca Lucchitta

   • 2

      

   • 3

      

   

   Photos: Francesca Lucchitta

   

    

   

    

   • 1

     Photos: Francesca Lucchitta

   • 2

      

   • 3

      
10. 

    Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    • 1

      Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    • 2

       

    • 3

       

    

    Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    

     

    

     

    • 1

      Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    • 2

       

    • 3

       

    Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers, episode 1

    Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers is an expression used in Latvian language to describe a fictional place of wealth and happiness. Growing up in Latvia where society shifted from a communist past towards a capitalist future, I wonder how the idea of Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers is represented in these regimes and how narratives of past and present are created, whilst directed and hosted within the Urban Stage.

    Exhibited at Studio for Immediate spaces graduation show Event Horizon at Klaproos Amsterdam
    Amsterdam, Netherlands, June, 2018

    Performed by: Elisabeth Mesnier, Mathilde Stubmark, Elia Castino

    Documentation: Mirko Podkowik, Francesca Lucchitta

     

12. Towards Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers

    

    Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    • 1

      Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    • 2

       

    • 3

       

    

    Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    

     

    

     

    • 1

      Photos: Mirko Podkowik

    • 2

       

    • 3

       

    Towards Jelly Coasts and Milk Rivers

    In the Union of Equals labor law and food quality is equal  .  ? A performative action of displaying food with the same product packaging bought in The Netherlands and Latvia. The appearance of the goods are the same, ingredients may differ.

    Amsterdam, Netherlands, December, 2017
    Performed with: Mathilde Stubmark, Elia Castino, and Naomi Crede

    Documentation: Mirko Podkowik

13. Lounge Area Snooze

    

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
    

    

    

    • 1
    • 2
    • 3
14. 

    • 1
    • 2
    

    

    • 1
    • 2

    Lounge Area Snooze

    Snooze* offers the enjoyment of solitude whilst collectively listening to the calming and at the same time frustrating phone line waiting sounds. "You are very important to us. Someone will approach you shortly. Please, hold."

    *To not allow oneself to wake up.

    Exhibited at group show SALSA at Paleis van Mieris.
    Amsterdam, Netherlands, June, 2017

15. The Love Song to Milk Rivers and Jelly Coasts

    

    • 1
    • 2
    

    

    • 1
    • 2

    The Love Song to Milk Rivers and Jelly Coasts

    Amsterdam, Netherlands, January, 2018
    Performed by: Mathilde Helbo, Sarah Daniel, Elia Castino

    Documentation: Mirko Podkowik

16. Private Within Communal

    

    • 1
    • 2
    

    

    • 1
    • 2

    Private Within Communal

    Audio guided and narrated performance where spectators become actors. Starting with creating floor plans from all of the places where I have ever lived, I wonder how larger scale politics have influenced my personal paths. How much am I guided and where lies the choice? Narrative constructed around property law, its changes during the time and looking into my personal and my family history. 

    Sandberg Institute Assembly Hall, Amsterdam, Netherlands, January, 2017