Summer School 2026: Open Lecture Programme

The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) invites visitors to attend the open lecture and workshop programme of the LCCA Summer School “Disenchanted Worlds: Contemporary Practices and Traditional Knowledge” at the Madona Local History and Art Museum from 6 to 10 August.

The detailed programme of the LCCA Summer School’s open lectures is available here.
Participation is free of charge. The working language is English.

The LCCA Summer School is an annual international non-academic educational programme aimed at providing young and emerging artists, as well as professionals in the arts and culture sector, with an opportunity to explore current developments in contemporary art, encourage discussion, and develop collective creative practices in an open and interdisciplinary format. The Summer School’s public programme of lectures and events is open to anyone interested, providing a wider audience with an opportunity to learn about contemporary art processes and contexts.

About the Programme

The 2026 LCCA Summer School programme will be opened by Toms Ķencis and Jana Kukaine, whose lecture “Keys to the Underworld” will focus on chthonic mythology and dark folklore in contemporary Baltic art, while also reflecting on feminist perspectives and environmental ethics. Philosopher Juhan Hellerma will present the lecture “Matches Lit in the Dark: Wonder and Resonance in a World No Longer Enchanted”, in which, drawing on the ideas of Max Weber, Hartmut Rosa, and Jane Bennett, he will explore the concepts of wonder, disenchantment, and resonance. Anne Sauka’s lecture “Disenchanting the World: Philosophical Contexts” will examine the philosophical context of situated knowledge, discussing the importance of disenchanting the world as an approach to sustainability and resilience.

The programme also includes practice-based workshops. Artist Liene Rumpe will lead the workshop “Fungal Ecologies as Models of Composition”, encouraging participants to draw inspiration from fungal networks as a possibility for artistic thinking. Through a fictional character – Ernests Tots – curator Marta Kudelska will offer an opportunity to explore aspects of alchemy, esotericism, and feminist art history. Dance and movement therapist Simona Orinska will lead the workshop “Mapping the Inner World: Dream Analysis and Embodied Experience”, introducing Jungian dream analysis, movement therapy, and performance as methods of self-exploration and creative expression.

The final days of the programme are devoted to sound, folklore, and collective memory. In the lecture “Oral Frictions: Voicing the Residue, Listening after Healing”, vocalist and writer Vaim Sarv will examine Baltic oral traditions, runo songs, animism, decolonial thought, and listening as a healing and ecological practice. The Summer School programme will conclude with Gundega Evelone and Eva Vēvere’s workshop “Dark Folklore and Embodied Performance: Landscape as an Archive of Knowledge”, which will invite participants to reinterpret Latvian mythology and dark folklore through rituals, performance, and collaborative artistic practice.

Organisers and Supporters

The curators of the Summer School programme are Andra Silapētere and the UNART team (Toms Ķencis, Jana Kukaine, Ieva Melgalve, and Maija Rudovska).

The LCCA Summer School is organised in cooperation with the Institute of Literature, Folklore and Art of the University of Latvia, through the implementation of the Latvian Council of Science-funded project “Contemporary Art and Folklore: Unlocking the Beyond (UNART)” (lzp-2024/1-0479), and the Madona Local History and Art Museum.

Financial support has been received within the framework of the “Vidzeme Culture Programme 2025”, implemented by the Vidzeme Planning Region, which is carried out under the State Culture Capital Foundation’s targeted programme “Development Programme for Latvia’s Historical Lands” and by the State Culture Capital Foundation.