Until March 29, visitors to the RSU Anatomy Museum are invited to explore the exhibition Horrify Me, Soothe Me, Horrify Me by Laimdota Malle. The artist's new exhibition is a result of six months' residency in the Anatomy Museum, where she created a visual conversation with its collection, sparking thoughts about the living and the fragile as opposed to the departed, the solidified and encapsulated matter.
Also before, Laimdota Malle has worked on the themes of memory and departure. In the exhibition "How to Move a Giant" (2019) and series of exhibitions "OOZE" (2023), as well as other works, she uses techniques of tracing and impressions in thin, translucent and fragile materials, to reflect on the ephemeral nature of human beings, their departure and disappearance; our wish to hold them and the necessity to release. What is left - the memories, bodies, souvenirs - seems to be subject to endless transformations, an eternal reminder that is unable to replace what was lost.
In this exhibition, the artist continues to delve into the process of grief, but in this case the body that is left after life has ended, acquires a new and independent existence. In the museum, researching the body parts that have been reduced to objects and their functions, the artist asks: how easy is it to distance oneself from elements that are unlike us, and how hard it is to separate the visible from the person if the human traits remain.
In the new series of works, Laimdota Malle creates symbolic paraffin shells and impressions of different bodies, balancing between movement and frozen time, a rhythmical repetition and dissolution. These works are consciously oscillating between shapes of different lifeforms, since the key to a fulfilled mourning can be found in the very inseparability of humans and nature. Her work reflects on proto-Indo-European mythology where the cycles of the world and nature revolves around goddesses of Spring and Dawn. The house of Dawn is full of colors, movement, sounds, renewal and light, and it is also a place where transformation and release happened, moving through mourning to healing.
The exhibition has been created together with curator and scenographer Aleksejs Beļeckis, sound artist Sarma Gabrēna, and light artist Romāns Medvedevs; it is experienced as an installation of sculptural objects, images, sounds and light: poetic research on the rites of being where becoming, transformation and fading is a part of an endless cycle of a united ecosystem.
Artist Laimdota Malle
Scenographer, curator Aleksejs Beļeckis
Sound composer Sarma Gabrēna
Light artist Romāns Medvedevs
Residency and exhibition project curator Ieva Lībiete
Text Aleksejs Beļeckis, Laimdota Malle, Ieva Melgalve
Laimdota Malle is a visual artist who works with sculpture, images, sound, and space using various media to create installations through which she explores and questions collective and personal experiences. Laimdota Malle has completed a master's program at Manchester Metropolitan University in the UK and a master's degree at the Latvian Academy of Arts, gaining international recognition for her creative approach and innovative explorations. In 2023, Laimdota Malle was nominated for the Purvīša Prize for the installation 'OOZE'.
Aleksejs Beļeckis is an interdisciplinary artist who works with space and image and organizes exhibitions in various forms. In 2024, Aleksejs created the space for Katrīna Neiburga's exhibition and also curated exhibitions by Andris Eglītis and the Fyodor Golan brand at the Latvian National Museum of Art. He is one of the organizers of the art space Savvaļa and has worked on several exhibitions of Latvian pavilions at the Venice Biennale.
Project is supported by State Culture Capital Foundation, Medicine Museum Support Society, and Riga Stradins University.
