'Strenči Is a World in Miniature': Unusual Contemporary Art Exhibition Installed Across Town
A contemporary art exhibition has been installed across Strenči, featuring works by artists from the Orbīta collective, including radios playing a song about the town and inscriptions in a hospital park. The project is part of the Valmiera municipality's 'Kurtuve' initiative.
Strenči, a small town in Latvia, is hosting a contemporary art exhibition that turns public spaces into an art trail. Among the objects created by artists from the creative association Orbīta are radios installed in the market square. Four minutes before every hour, they play a song dedicated to the town.
One artwork is located in the park of the local psychoneurological hospital. Artūrs Punte, the exhibition coordinator, explains that the artists noticed this part of the park functions as a small freedom zone. People come there to smoke and talk, and they are not bound by the usual rules and schedules. To highlight another aspect of freedom, inconspicuous inscriptions have been placed in three gazebos, stating that no video surveillance is conducted there.
The exhibition is part of the Valmiera municipality project "Kurtuve: Contemporary Culture for Everyone." Some artists took the word "everyone" literally; the authors of the next object, Eva Vēvere and Laura Prikule from the association "Poetic Robotism," continue this approach, ensuring art is accessible to every resident and visitor.
