Latvia 2022

Title: Selling Water by the River
Commissioner: Solvita Krese
Curator: Solvita Krese and Andra Silapētere
Exhibitor: Skuja Braden (Ingūna Skuja and Melissa D. Braden)

“Selling Water by the River” is the exhibition of the Latvian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale. The artist duo Skuja Braden took inspiration from James Baldwin’s statement in “Giovanni’s Room” (1956): “Perhaps home is not a place but simply an irrevocable condition”. The exhibition features a multilayered installation that maps the mental, physical, and spiritual areas of being and self within the artists’ own home.

In “Selling Water by the River“, home is echoed by deeply personal images in porcelain. The porcelain comes to life in the form of luxuriously painted dishes, everyday objects, fountains, bendy hoses, male and female physiques while preserving the traces of nature. Through this exhibition, the artists want to shed a light on what shapes our understanding of public and private space, and what is our role in constructing these views. How can we fashion our surroundings to be as inclusive and open as possible, so that others could feel at home there? Where disagreements and conflicts often arise is often where private and public spaces meet; a place where different values intersect.