The Riga Photography Biennial NEXT 2023 publication explores “awkward topics” people often avoid talking about as they spark negative emotions and bitter conflicts with its main focus on the ongoing war in Ukraine.

Getting out of the house. An ordinary activity, like going out to do some shopping or to take a walk? Or getting out metaphorically – separating yourself from your family home? Such separation is not easy when you are leaving a home full of contradictions – a place that is both a shelter and a prison, a place that is both cosy and uncomfortable.

The exhibition On Transitions: Impressions of Abu Dhabi is a reflection on what shapes a sense of place and how an individual’s attachment to a place changes in time and as new layers of memory and experience are formed in the context of continuously living “inbetween” Riga and Abu Dhabi.

To promote understanding of curators' contri¬bution and develop the profession of curator in Latvia, the Riga Photography Biennial – NEXT in cooperation with the Curatorial Course of the Art Academy of Latvia has launched pro¬gramme – a competition offering Latvia's emerg¬ing curators the opportunity to show their abilities.

This is the fifth year the Riga Photography Biennial’s - NEXT and ISSP Gallery Award for young Baltic photographers has been presented. The goal of the award is to discover and appraise the creative efforts of young artists who demonstrate the power of the image in their works, offering an original point of view and conceptual depth, suited to the times. Award finalist’s work presentation evening provides an opportunity to take a look at the projects by 5 young artists of the Baltic States.

In 2023 the Riga Photography Biennial Seeking the Latest in Photography! Award is presented for the fifth time. The goal of the award is to discover and appraise the creative efforts of young artists who demonstrate the power of the image in their works, offering an original point of view and conceptual depth, suited to the times. It highlights emerging Baltic artists whose works are already dominated by these qualities. Since 2019, the award has been presented within the Biennial's programme NEXT in cooperation with the ISSP Gallery.

For five years now the Riga Photography Biennial - NEXT has been collaborating with the Lithuanian publisher NoRoutine Books to evaluate entries for the Seeking the Latest in Photography! award. An international jury of experts is charged with judging the submissions and selecting one young Baltic artist to receive the main prize, the opportunity to have their work exhibited in ISSP Gallery, while NoRoutine Books also selects its favourite of the young contenders, giving them the opportunity to publish their own photobook.

Diāna Tamane’s work Half-Love follows her half-sister Elīna, her father's daughter from his second marriage, growing up. The pictures were taken while spending time together at their family home in Kursīši, where Diana visits every summer. The passage of time in the series is revealed both visually and metaphorically, as motifs repeat. Their greenhouse becomes an improvised photo studio, where Tamane takes a portrait of her sister every year. Another recurring subject is the nearby forest, visible from their terrace, which gradually regrows after being cut down. The process of taking photos is an opportunity for Tamane to spend time with her younger half-sister, as well as a chance to re-enact her own childhood experiences against the background of a seemingly idyllic seaside village. Thus, Half-Love is both an observation of her sister’s life and their relationship as well as a love letter to her, and Elīna's continuous eagerness to cooperate and participate in the project reveals the close bond between the two half-sisters, which they managed to create despite the fact that they grew up in different families.

Second year now the Riga Photography Biennial - NEXT has been collaborating with the VV Foundation to evaluate entries for the Seeking the Latest in Photography! award. An international jury of experts is charged with judging the submissions and selecting one young Baltic artist to receive the main prize, the opportunity to have their work exhibited in ISSP Gallery, while VV Foundation also selects its favourite of the young contenders, giving them the opportunity to to spend a month in the artist residency PaIR in Pāvilosta.

The exhibition features reflections by four young artists, or four different quests after the true essence of things, with the artists withdrawing into themselves and carefully questioning the language of their creative medium of choice, i.e., photography. The artists, representing Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Norway, not only share an introspective drive, characteristic of all young people, as well as a desire to understand their position in the global landscape at large, but are also similar in the way they pursue it.

The photo series Grandmothers on the Edge of Heaven is dedicated to an ever-topical theme that takes on a special resonance in this time and situation. Its protagonists are an important social group – the older generation, or, particularly, old women in Western Ukraine. The Ukrainian artist Elena Subach was first surprised, then enchanted and then plunged into existential contemplation by the vitality these women possess.

Diāna Tamane’s work Half-Love follows her half-sister Elīna, her father's daughter from his second marriage, growing up. The pictures were taken while spending time together at their family home in Kursīši, where Diana visits every summer. The passage of time in the series is revealed both visually and metaphorically, as motifs repeat. Their greenhouse becomes an improvised photo studio, where Tamane takes a portrait of her sister every year.

Emotions cannot be photographed. Mental states, and even the most straightforward and expressive of emotions, elude the camera. In a photograph, we see a face contorted by a grimace and we think ‘anguish.’ A goofy smile indicates ‘delight.’ However, this does not suffice. Individual images merely refer to memories and recalled emotional states, while standing in the way of an accurate transmission of them. Sentenced to singularity and exclusivity, images of feelings fail to build relationships.

Since 2020, the global and local art space has fundamentally changed, becoming polarized and being rebuilt under the influence of the pandemic and the war started by Russia. Geopolitical upheavals directly affect financial processes, as well as contribute to events that reduce the observance of democratic policy, both in the formation of countries and their cultural policies.