1st Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art

EVERYTHING WAS FOREVER UNTIL IT WAS NO MORE

Change is a constant and imperceptible process. Nothing remains the same and yet it often feels as if things are fixed, solid certainties. Change operates in strange ways. ‘Ta panta rhei’ (everything flows), the ancient Greek philosopher Heraclitus pointed out, meaning that: everything is constantly changing, from the smallest organic particle to the whole universe. According to him, every seemingly stable object is ultimately a figment of one’s imagination; only change itself is real, being constant and in eternal flux, like the continuous flow of the river, which always renews itself and only appears to remain the same over time. Until recently – and excluding those rarer radical moments of personal, social or political transformation – change has appeared to creep up on us slowly. But then it sometimes happens that one day we ‘wake up’ and experience a sudden break in consciousness. It abruptly dawns on us that our world has changed beyond recognition. We feel as if we have been thrust into the future, unwittingly. In recent years, and particularly since the advent of the technological revolution, it seems that even the Heraclitan constant flow of things has turned into a torrent. Our world seems to be ever accelerating. As James Gleick argues in Faster: The Acceleration of Just About Everything: “We have reached the epoch of the nanosecond. This is the heyday of speed”. The 1st Riga Biennial will reflect on the phenomenon of change – how it is anticipated, experienced, grasped, assimilated and dealt with at this time of accelerated transitions and the increasing speeding up of our lives. 

The Riga International Biennial of Contemporary Art (RIBOCA) has eight main venues, which will host the inaugural edition of the biennial and its related public programme and events. The majority of these spaces are within 20 minutes walking distance of each other, creating a sustainable parcours and allowing visitors the time to experience the exhibition and the artists, as well as to discover the city.