For the ninth time running, Daugavpils Fortress is acting as a base for leading ceramicists for an entire fortnight, with symposium participants from seven countries making ceramic artworks and experimenting with different firing techniques.
On 9 July, the symposium team of 15 artists opened an exhibition at “4METRES”, the new glass gallery of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Ceramics in the courtyard of 8 Hospitāļa Street Daugavpils. This preview show is assembled from the pieces the artists brought along when they came to the symposium.
Conversely, at the symposium, the participants enter a new, unfamiliar environment to carry out laboratory-style experiments – share experiences, observe their colleagues at work, test new materials and try unusual firings.
"Some prefer more controlled experiments, producing sample pieces from the available range of materials, whilst others put caution aside and surrender fully to the irresistible pull of the unpredictable. Taken together, they fill the symposium timeframe with new emotions, ideas and insights that may very well bring unexpected twists and turns to the artists’ individual creative journeys," said a release from the Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Center.
The work will culminate in an exhibition at Daugavpils Mark Rothko Art Centre starting from 4 p.m. on 23 July.
Once the show is over, the new pieces will be incorporated in the Rothko Centre ceramics collection, strengthening Latvia’s broadest collection of ceramics and reaffirming the symbolic status of Daugavpils as the ceramic capital of the region.
This year, the international symposium “Ceramic Laboratory” is part of a Latvia, Lithuania and Belarus cross-border cooperation project.
More details of the symposium and the other exhibitions currently availabe at the official website.
