Photo exhibition shows Latvian artists exploring park-like meadows

The exhibition «Journey to Marsi. The Artist Enters the Park-like Meadow» presents large-format photographs of eight Latvian artists and artist groups meeting park-like meadows, a distinctive type of Latvian cultural landscape. It shows how this landscape looks in different seasons and also reflects the artists' impressions and memories of the journey. Most of the photographs were taken in Marsi, in Valka municipality, one of the finest and oldest park-like meadows in Latvia.

Artists in the Ziemeļgauja area

In both 2025 and 2026, the park-like meadows of Ziemeļgauja were visited by Ieva Iltnere and Jānis Mitrēvics, the collective Skuja Braden, sculptor Aigars Bikše, poet Jānis Rokpelnis, composer Krists Auznieks together with artist Krista Vindberga-Auzniece, artist Andris Eglītis, actor Vilis Daudziņš and the band Alejas. The encounters were captured by photographer Kristaps Kalns. In his images, a person, as part of the Latvian cultural landscape, becomes part of the park-like meadow as well.

Why meadows

Inese Ebele, director of the Latvian Fund for Nature, explains that park-like meadows are a cultural landscape in which people and nature build mutually enriching relationships: human presence helps biodiversity flourish, while nature generously gives back to people. For that reason, representatives of the arts and culture were invited to enter this landscape and develop their own dialogue with it. According to Ebele, this highlights the importance of park-like meadows and makes them more visible, while also joining the reassessment of the relationship between people and nature that is currently relevant worldwide.