Approaching Latvia once more on a sunny day with the wind from behind, we sailed with the colourful spinnaker for the first time. Coming to the entrance of the Daugava river, we took spinnaker down but continued sailing up the river for another two hours. From Ruhnu it took us 10 hours of sailing in good wind. On the river we were struck by the strong impressions of the harbour activities – mountains of coal from Russia being loaded on big ships was maybe the most eyecatching business. On the other side of the flood bank, people lived close to the water in ramshackle houses, surrounded by nature. Lots of birds, lots of machinery sounds. We all collected some interesting material during these last hours of silent sailing on the river.
In Riga we had an appointment with the Latvian Center for Contemporary Art. This organisation has an archive of latvian artists and also produces projects of different kinds. Through them we got contacts to artists and our few last days together in Riga was a race meeting people. In the end, when the project crew already had left the boat, Birgitta sailed out on a daytrip with a few of those we met; Kirils Pantelejevs, artist and teacher at the Art Academy of Riga, Dzintars Zilgavis, leader of the floating art & media platform NOASS, and two young members of the Bolderaja group, an activist group using art as a way of acting in environmental issues.
The Bolderaja group puts up a mailart project this autumn called ”learn to swim” – claiming that the water will rise and people have to learn to swim to be able to survive. They are asking artists for contributions that will be shown in the empty shops in Riga, empty because of the financial crises. This is one example that we met of how artists can work with environmental activists to reach people´s minds. Another way could be to ”learn to sail”…
To make this sailtour was really a hit. I think they all appreciated the day very much, they had never seen their own living place from the waters in this way. We could also sail into some harbours from the seaside to look for other perspectives on their reality, to places that was not possible to reach from land. The day after, I was invited to a car trip with Dzintars, leader of NOASS, to an opening at the sculpture park Pedvale,120 km away from Riga. Here I met Laura Feldberga, who´s material we had been presented to at the Center for Contemporary Art. This was the last day of contact-making and project-time. After this the boat was sailed back to Sweden with one swedish friend and two russian guests from Kaliningrad/Riga. And the project got even some more useful contatcts!We hope that Kaliningrad can be one of the ports of visit next summer.