Echoes

Echoes, 2021

An audio walk for Daugavgrīva Fortress in Riga, Latvia and Håøya island in Norway: two stories, one shared choreography, one memorial archive.

 

 

History is never linear. When telling the story of one place it influences the historical course elsewhere. Hand grenades full with dynamite produced in Norway might have exploded here in Riga. These places reverb each other, they echo each other’s history and stories behind it.

 

During two weeks in April four artists from Latvia, Cyprus and Denmark have been exploring and created an audiographic scenography as a bridge between time and distance - researching its ability to transfer the phenomenology of a place to someone who has never been there physically. The audio walk builds upon a research of the history, stories and materiality of three sites: Daugavgrīva Fortress, Håøya island and Famagusta 'ghost city' in Cyprus - all of which are abandoned territories in which nature is gradually taking over their complex histories.

 

The audio-based research is exploring fluidity and tangibility of historical places by asking does memory reside site-specifically? Can the reverberations of these memories echo through auditive storytelling? And might audio as a medium help us “write” the unwritten connections between our gruesome cultural heritages?

 

 

Authors: Līga Ūbele, Olga Regitze Dyrløv Høegh, Kristaps Priede, Selin Uretici.

Photo: Aivars Ivbulis