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Traveling contemporary art exhibition “Art on Wheels”

Association „Mākslas centrs NOASS” together with the Donorstate partner from Norway – NGO „Fargefabrikken” till April 30, 2024 realizes the project „Art on Wheels.” It is time for the project story:

“It may seem that contemporary art can only be found in big cities, galleries and museums. The project “Art on Wheels” aims for the opposite, taking artworks outside the borders of Riga, addressing students and teachers in various places in Latvia, as well as promoting the use of contemporary art in the school teaching process. This is a relatively new experience in Latvia, but it has been a well-developed practice in Norway for many years.

How was the whole Latvia viewed?

The journey begins in Riga, at the AB Dam, where young people – art mediators board two colorful minibuses, ready to show contemporary art to school-age children. These buses go on the road and travel tens, sometimes even hundreds of kilometers until they stop in the school yard, where the exhibition and contemporary art experiences comes to life. Mediators unpack boxes and welcome children whose eyes are shining with anticipation, and young people skeptically ready to questions about the exhibition.

They already know that “Art on Wheels” has arrived – an exhibition that travels around Latvia, bringing four new, completely different works of contemporary art, created by the students of Riga Bolderājas Jaunā Primary School and Jūrmala State Gymnasium together with artists from Latvia and Norway.

What to expect?

When „Art on Wheels” rolls into the schoolyard, the first thing everyone sees is one yellow and one gray bus. If you take a closer look, you can see everyday scenes from the lives of young people in their exteriors, which, carefully arranged in a colorful collage, make up the artwork “Youth Camouflage“, created by the artist Zahars Ze.

Then mediators e in yellow shirts push the boxes out of the buses. What is hidden in them? The artist Eva Vēvere has placed blocks and objects of different shapes in the boxes, with the help of which students can become architects of the changing universe. Students are invited to get involved and have a hand in creating their own stories and their own imagined worlds.

While the changing universe is being built, a light comes on in one of the buses and spooky sounds start playing. When getting into the bus, the children see a satellite dish with the colors of the northern lights, a retro radio, lamps and a telephone – seemingly familiar objects that move and behave in an unusual way. Norwegian artist Oda Bremnes has created the artwork “Sensing Waves” for this project, unashamedly playing with the audience’s senses and perception of reality, creating networks and waves in which these objects communicate.

After lingering in semi-darkness of the bus, the students impatiently go to the other bus, where the most zestful classmate is already sitting in a red chair with glasses on their eyes. In the work of art “New Trajectories”, Jurģis Peters depicts a completely new world that has been taken over by artificial intelligence, from humans leaving only trace od clouds made up of points. You can get to know this new world with the help of VR glasses.

What they think about it?

This is inquired by the mediator – a young person who acts as an intermediary between art and the student. Mediator is a person who will help you get to know all the works of art and the exhibition as a whole, will listen to the viewer’s opinion, engage in a conversation about the exhibition and challenge you to get involved in the art process. What do you see? What else can be observed? What do you hear? What does it make you think of? These simple questions bring artwork to life, create stories, and take students on a flight of imagination.

Why is this important?

For most of the viewers of the exhibition (as many as 88% according to the survey data of the project), which already numbers in the thousands across Latvia, “Art on Wheels” is the first encounter with contemporary art. A mediator can make this meeting a meaningful process in a safe, creative and open environment. Art mediation does not end when the exhibition leaves. It is a process in which teachers are also invited to participate, using the tasks accompanying the exhibition in the learning process. Mediation is no longer foreign to many teachers, it was learned in project seminars and used to prepare students for visiting the exhibition.

Project implementers

The EEA grants provided the opportunity for the “Art Center NOASS” to build an exhibition, which was created in the co-production of 4 artists with children and young people in two pilot schools (Riga’s Bolderājas Jaunā pamatskola and Jūrmala’s State Gymnasium). The educational program of the project was created together with the Norwegian partner art studio “Fargefabrikken”. This program allows children to get to know the exhibition, get interested in artistic processes, new technologies and creative experiments. Also, throughout the project, “Fargefabrikken” introduced the project team to the practice of art mediation and strengthened their skills in working with students.

“Art on Wheels” is a project funded by the European Economic Area (EEA) grant program “Regional Development and Culture” in the competition “Support for the creation of professional art and cultural products for children and young people.” The project receives grants in the amount of €206,518 from the EEA grants of Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway and state co-financing in the amount of €36,444. The project implementation period is from November 1, 2022 to April 30, 2024.