White Night is a part of the international project White Nights Europe started by five European capitals – Brussels, Madrid, Paris, Riga and Rome. In Riga it has been a tradition for four years. Each participating city includes works by notable artists from other participants in its program of White Night. Now also other European capitals have joined the party, namely Amsterdam, Bucharest, Porto and Valletta, and Toronto, Tokyo, Montreal, Chicago and other cities are now overseas members of the network.
The White Night forum is organized by Riga City Council Culture Department in collaboration with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, and the events of the forum are arranged by the most active culture organizations in Latvia, including a whole lot of artists both from Latvia and abroad.
White Night is one of the most democratic and widely-attended culture events in Riga. It aims to increase understanding of contemporary culture and has been successful in reaching this aim in the previous years. As observed, White Night events attract over 30 thousand inhabitants and guests of Riga city and break down barriers between age groups, nationalities, interest and knowledge background.
The public of White Night can be described as socially active and open-minded. Mostly it is young people up to the age of 35, also families with children and guests of Riga who are interested in contemporary culture, but seniors can also be spotted in the White Night crowd quite often.
Entrance to all White Night events is free of charge.
Related: links to homepages of White Nights of previous years and other European countries. Baltā Nakts 2006, Baltā Nakts 2007, Baltā Nakts 2008