Its central event is the 10th-anniversary edition of the Ceramic Laboratory Symposium, which will offer art lovers multiple opportunities to engage with ceramics – see new artworks being fired in the kilns, watch the kilns being opened after firing and observe ceramicists at work in public demonstrations.
The festival will culminate on 29 July with a series of free-access activities. At 4 p.m., two exhibitions will be opened at the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre – the closing exhibition of the Ceramic Laboratory Symposium and a group show of Polish contemporary ceramics, “The Matter of Space”.
An hour before the opening, at 3 p.m., the ceramicist and lecturer Marta Wróblewska (Poland) will give a lecture on contemporary Polish ceramics. After a necessary break due to the exhibition opening, the lecture series at the Rothko Center’s conference hall will resume at 5 p.m., introducing the public to contemporary ceramic trends in Latvia’s neighboring countries.
Shortly after sundown, at 10 p.m., the artist duo of Delia Maxim (Romania) and Josef Islay (Hungary) will give an audio-visual performance “Polywaves” in the Martinsons House courtyard. The festival will close at 11 p.m. with a fire sculpture show by the Latvian ceramicist Elīna Titāne.
The festival has brought together fourteen artists from seven countries: Rasa Justaitė Gecevičienė (Lithuania), Ingrid Allik (Estonia), Alicja Buławka Fankidejska (Poland), Dmitrij Buławka Fankidejski (Poland), Marta Wróblewska (Poland), Delia Maxim (Romania) and Josef Islay (Hungary); from Latvia – Elīna Titāne, Lauris Krauze, Hanna Miadzvedzeva, Una Gura, Lilija Zeiļa, Nellija Dzalba and Ilona Abdulajeva. The festival team also includes an artist from Ukraine – Andrii Ilinskiy.
The full festival program is available here: https://www.rothkocenter.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/07/SLKF-programma-en.pdf