Rehearsing Murky Bogland Futures

Linda Boļšakova (Latvia) in collaboration with Rósa Ómarsdóttir (Iceland)

This participatory audio play invites into a future of deeper entanglements with a living, more-than-human world. Delving deeper into the future movements and mythologies of bogland through a performance that unfolds within the individual bodies of each participant. Our present-day approaches and ways of perceiving our place within natural processes are haunted by speculative futures. In this piece you’ll tune into the vibrant frequencies of the world to come, where the bog has come into the city. 

“Not like a catastrophe 

not like a flood 

more like waking up 

more like remembering. 

Slow, insistent and without doubt.” 

Moving beyond extractivist logic and into murky entanglement, the bog is encountered as an agential being. The sonic landscape conjures a speculative ecology in which bogland is no longer a distant wetland but a sentient force seeping into the city, into bodies, into time itself. 

This is the second work of the trilogy series by Linda Boļšakova, developing as part of the EU Creative Europe project The Big Green residency at Ķemeri National Park.

About artist

I’m a research-based, interdisciplinary artist, focusing on installation and performance. My long-term research circles around what I call thermodynamic reincarnation. This concept, taken from both physics and spiritual worldviews, seeks to understand our deep energy bonds. I work with relationality as the essential structure of being and imagine futures of more sustainable coexistence. The works are not located in any particular object or subject but can be found in the relationships between them. Acknowledging the vibrancy and equality of material ambodiments, be they human or more-than-human, the developed work is often sculptural, but it is a sculpture that is attuned to the changing nature of things; sculpture that is, in this sense, always a performance. 

Most recently, I immersed myself in the geological processes of Iceland and the boglands of Latvia. For the second year in the three-year triptych work on time at Ķemeri National Park, I am collaborating with Icelandic choreographer Rósa Ómarsdóttir. Last year’s performance took people to the bog to lend movement to the bog bodies of the past on an 8000-year-thick peatland. This year, Rósa and I are tuning into the vibrant frequencies of the future, where the bog has come into the city.

Credits

Created by: Linda Boļšakova in collaboration with Rósa Ómarsdóttir

Soundscape by: Ernst Lima

 

Supported by: The work was created with the support of the EU program Creative Europe as part of the project The Big Green, with financial support from the Society Integration Foundation from the Latvian state budget allocated by the Ministry of Culture and co-financing from the Ministry of Culture of Latvia. The work is being carried out in cooperation with the Pierīga Regional Administration of the Nature Conservation Agency. Special acknowledgment to Agnese Balandiņa. The New Theatre Institute of Latvia is responsible for the content of the performance.

Date

05.09. Friday 17.30–20.00
06.09. Saturday 15.00–20.00
07.09. Sunday 15.00–20.00
09.09. Tuesday 15.00–20.00
10.09. Wednesday 15.00–20.00

Entrance

Free entry

Location

Cultural centre Smilga Eduarda Smiļģa iela 34A Rīga

Language

No language

Accessibility

Accessible Content for People with Mobility Impairments Accessible Content for People with Visual Impairments

Partially accessible

There is a steep ramp with uneven asphalt surface at the main entrance. There is a 10 cm step inside the premises. There are no adapted facilities or marked parking spaces.

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