“Our idea was to create a ‘playground-laboratory’ in which everyone can bear their mortality, leave their fears of death and the anxiety about immortality outside the Gray Monastery gate, and enjoy a variety of relaxing and life-assuring experiences: reach the state of fulfilment and mindfulness by enjoying the rain in custom-made beauty-sleep pods, experience acupuncture of the pranamat carpet between silently whispering reeds. Through the fern maze, enjoy the light game of the colourful stained-glass windows and contemplate the slow decay of sculptures made of turf; or get a slow ride on a carousel, looking at the surrounding landscape as the scenery of passing time.”

-  Katrīna Neiburga’s and Andris Eglītis’ decription of the project

Katrīna Neiburga (1978) is an artist making installations, light and video projections as well as scenography. She creates works for opera and theater productions. Employing an anthropological approach, she researches the life experiences of different people and turns to everyday phenomena that are often either overlooked or ignored, depicting interesting and often intimate and personal stories. Katrīna Neiburga graduated from the Visual Communication Department of the Art Academy of Latvia in 2000, and she studied at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm from 1999 to 2000. She has been participating in exhibitions since 2000, including the biennials of Sidney (2006), Moscow (2007), Venice (2015), Kochi-Muziris (2016) and Rīga (2018). In 2015, together with artist Andris Eglītis, she represented Latvia at the 56th Venice Biennale with the project titled Armpit. Andris Eglītis (1981) is an artist associated with the medium of painting, but large-scale architectural installations likewise occupy a significant place in his art practice. He is a graduate of the Painting Department of the Art Academy of Latvia (2005) and the Higher Institute for Fine Arts (HISK) in Ghent, Belgium (2013). Jānis Noviks (1989) is an artist solving the topics interesting to him using large-scale sculptural objects and installations, paying particular attention to sound and movement. He holds a master’s degree from the Painting Department of the Art Academy of Latvia (2015).