JAUNUMI

Contemporary culture forum White Night 2010 is happening already in a few days’ time – the night between September 4 and 5. This year White Night offers about 50 art projects of larger and smaller scale. Entrance to all events is free of charge. This year the forum will be based on two principles – DIY! and Participate! White Night forum is organized by Culture Department at Education, Culture and Sport Committee of Riga City Council in collaboration with Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA), while it is the most active culture organizations in Latvia are responsible for the projects and events involving a great many artists from Latvia and abroad.

“The events of White Night 2010 are concentrated in several areas of Riga – Spīķeri warehouse district, VEF factory buildings, Andrejsala and the quiet centre of the city, Old Riga, Miera Street and the active centre. The very first activities, mostly intended for families with children, will start already at noon and the whole thing will continue all day and night until 6 a.m. The projects, altogether over 50 of them, will include sound and eco installations, music projects, outdoor and indoor cinema, exhibitions, performances and a multitude of opportunities for the audience to participate and become a part of White Night,” says Dzidra Šmita, head of Culture Department at Education, Culture and Sport Committee of Riga City Council.

Up-to-date information and news on the forum, a complete program, suggested routes for various tastes, a map of events and venues as well as public transport schedule is available on www.baltanakts.lv. From 17:00 to 24:00 on September 4 an info point of White Night will be operating in Old Riga, beside the Hotel de Rome.

Among the events will be such projects as “The Long Bean” with a White Night garden in the Botanical Gardens, a “Complaints Choir” built upon an idea that originated in Finland, a “Folk Pharmacy” on a windowsill as well as other creative projects, Sound Forest projects and the already traditional radio NABA organized “Videography” among them. The most extensive and multiform of all White Night projects also this year will be “Survival Kit 2”, encompassing a multitude of places in Riga and offering original projects to acquaint visitors with the ideas of alternative economy, ecology and positive utopias.

“The basic program of this year’s White Night is constituted by 12 projects, others have joined on their own initiative as a response to this year’s motto DIY! Participate! and the call of organizers. Exactly because of this the White Night of 2010 will be very colourful, original and multi-faceted,“ says Solvita Krese, director of LCCA.