Steampunk exhibition 'Post-Apocalyptic Travelers' opens at Valka library

From September 1 to 30, the Valka Regional Central Library is hosting a steampunk-style exhibition called 'Post-Apocalyptic Travelers' by artist Anda Sīmane-Gudriniece. The show features handmade dolls, vehicles and other objects built in the steampunk aesthetic, characterized by visible gears, tubes and mechanical details.

The artist has been drawn to steampunk for more than a decade. She explains her interest began when she helped a friend translating a novel by a Lithuanian author, which required making matching accessories and led to the first steampunk photo sessions.

Unusual exhibits

On display are objects with no practical use in everyday life but which take on special meaning within the steampunk world — including a device meant to determine what someone dreams, a pocket watch that symbolically allows turning back an hour, and a device designed to preserve people's memories from diary entries. The exhibition also includes a weather-forecasting apparatus and an air balloon navigation kit.

All the dolls were made this year, and some are based on prototypes among the artist's relatives, friends and acquaintances.

Materials rescued from everyday waste

Many of the objects were made from items that would otherwise end up as trash — a processed cheese box became a suitcase, a cardboard coffee cup was turned into a cylinder, and a tangerine peel was used to shape an aviator cap. The artist says this fits the exhibition's concept: a post-collapse world where no new materials are available and everything must be reused.

According to the artist, the exhibition's characters are travelers who, after a great collapse, search for remaining valuable traces of the past to build a new future from them. The show is complemented by steampunk-genre photographs taken by several photographers.

On September 26, the library will host a Children's Morning, giving visitors a chance to meet the artist and take part in a creative workshop.