The Big Green Un-conference
Various artistsThe Big Green is a collaborative project formed by 14 European environmental, science, and arts organizations that advocates for the active role of culture and art in driving social change. It invites artists and researchers to collaborate in exploring new, unconventional forms of expression to deepen understanding of sustainable development.
Every year, several partners of “The Big Green” project select one element of nature for artists across different countries to reflect upon, study, and create new works inspired by it. The theme for 2024 was “air”, for 2025 – “soil”, and the theme for 2026 will be “water.” A two-year program developed by project partners, “The School of Enough,” connects art and activism practices to unravel ecological, political, economic, and social challenges and, through collective thinking and creation, isolate alternatives to the continuous pressure of economic growth and the inequality it generates.
Once a year, one of “The Big Green” partners organizes an un-conference – an interdisciplinary event where project partners, artists, researchers, and audiences come together to foster new forms of knowledge exchange through conversations, lectures, workshops, and performative actions. This year, it will be organized by the Homo Novus festival.
Programme
September 9th
13.30–18.00 Expedition to Lake Ummis in Carnikava Parish with Evarts Melnalksnis, author of the performance Ummis and Lobelia, hydrobiologist Marta Dieviņa, and botanists Uvis Suško.
Beginning and end of the expedition: Riga Railway Station
English
Free entry, seats are limited. With prior registration (at the end of August)
Please dress appropriately for a hike in the forest and bring snacks and water for a picnic break.
Less than an hour’s drive from Riga lies one of the last remaining clear water lakes in Latvia – Ummis, home to the lobelia, a species listed as endangered.
Performative storytelling and lectures on the train en route to Ummis focus on our relationship with the perishing. What do we lose with each species that disappears? Can extinction be resisted?
17.30–19.30 Delicate Balancing of a Twig by Dávid Somló
Venue: Station Square
Free entry
September 10th
11.30–13.00 Philosophical talk on the train “About time: a conversation on the way to” with environmental philosopher Philipp P. Thapa and artist Linda Boļšakova
English
Free entry, seats are limited. With prior registration (at the end of August)
Landscape researcher and environmental philosopher Philipp P. Thapa, together with Linda Boļšakova, will take the audience on a journey to the Ķemeri Bog, bringing the concept of time and different perceptions of time along for the ride. A philosophical conversation that helps to prepare for the destination, if you still believe that the journey has an end.
14.00–17.00 Peatland Justice Workshops in the Ķemeri Bog
English and Latvian
Free entry, seats are limited. With prior registration (at the end of August)
Please dress appropriately for walking on the bog boardwalk and bring snacks and water for a picnic break.
Peatland Justice is an artistic and educational programme created by the international collective RE-PEAT with the aim of changing the traditional negative perception of peatlands as wastelands and instead creating new narratives about their important place in ecology and culture. Two Peatland Justice workshops will be held in the Ķemeri Bog for those with and without prior knowledge.
Planetary Workshop and Collective Storytelling will focus on the global significance of bogs from a deeper perspective of time and space, not only in ecological terms, but also in political and cultural ones, as participants create a new narrative together.
September 11th
9.30–11.30 Big Green Networking
Kalve Coffee living room, Krišjāņa Valdemāra Street 17A, Riga
Free entry, seats are limited. With prior registration (at the end of August)
A meeting and discussion between the European collaborative project The Big Green and local artists, researchers and experts sharing practices and opportunities for collaboration between art, science, technology, philosophy and other disciplines during the climate crisis.
14.00–17.00 Peatland Justice Workshops in the Ķemeri Bog
English and Latvian
Free entry, seats are limited. With prior registration (at the end of August)
Peatland Justice is an artistic and educational programme created by the international collective RE-PEAT with the aim of changing the traditional negative perception of peatlands as wastelands and instead creating new narratives about their important place in ecology and culture. Two Peatland Justice workshops will be held in the Ķemeri Bog for those with and without prior knowledge.
The workshop Exploring the Sounds of the Bog invites participants to immerse themselves in a world of in-depth listening, to record sounds found in the bog and to create a collective soundscape.
September 11th–12th
Climate Choir flash mob in various locations in Riga
In a short flash mob, the choir will visit places in Riga that cause deliberate damage to the environment and places where nature shows fierce resistance.
The Climate Choir brings together people who are concerned about the excessive logging of Latvia’s forests, the unnecessary drainage of wetlands, the deliberate destruction of habitats and species, changes to national legislation, and the misleading of the public in the name of quick profits. The story of Latvia as one of the greenest countries in Europe is a myth that has long since lost its basis in reality.
September 12th
18.00 Wetland Day
Wetland of Torņakalns (Exact location TBC)
Free entry
The Wetland of Torņakalns, also referred to in the media as a ‘random, temporary natural oasis’, has not only revealed tensions between nature conservation and area development specialists, but has also challenged the public’s understanding of what biologically significant areas should look like and where they should be located. In addition, it has raised the question of how to talk about the existence of such areas, responsibility towards them and their more-than-human significance, taking into account the development plans for the area.
The Festival programme features two events dedicated to the Wetland of Torņakalns – a short choir performance by the Climate Choir, as well as an online discussion Wetland Stories (Mitrāja stāsti) organised by the environmental protection and education organisation Zaļā brīvība and the project Water Cultures of the University of Latvia, in which friends and researchers of the Wetland will share their experiences, knowledge and observations, and anyone interested is welcome to register their participation.
Credits
Supported by: The Un-conference 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 New Theatre Institute of Latvia is responsible for the content of the performance.