Riga - European Capital of Culture 2014 candidate

oad mapThe greater part of mankind lives in cities. The conditions createdby the urban environment form the dense weave of everydayrituals and participate in forming the signification of privateand public space. A city is not only made up of buildings andcarriageways, but rather by containers of meaning, flows ofinformation, language grids and vectors of varied pressure.Cities are like living organisms that can grow dynamicallyand aggressively, as well as being helpless, confused anddiminishing. They can be led by the dynamics of the explosivedevelopment of ‘generic cities’ (Rem Koolhaas) groundedin the pragmatism of capitalism. Or, it might be the globalcity defined by Saskia Sassen, in which the local is found inconstant interaction with the global. It may be assumed thata city grows by itself.The language of a city is determined by the urban rituals, navigationalsigns and gestures that are integrated and brought to lifein the complex social network. Cities create a multitude of platforms,offering a common living space for individuals of differentcultures and identities, activating the transformation of the privateand public space, catalysing the collision of differing positionsand nursing the spirit of resistance.Just as in the recipe of a refined dish meal, a multitude of ingredientsblend together in the language of the city, the proportiondetermining each city’s unique flavour. The “mental” cartographyof Riga is formed by the historical architecture of the Old Town,the Jugendstil of Albert Street and the pavilions of the CentralMarket - the former zeppelin hangars. It is also formed by the urbanarchaeology of Soviet times, the so-called “high-rise areas” ofthe city, allotments in the city centre, the annual trek to Bolderājaby the members of the Unprecedented Sensations RestorationWorkshop, the Art Day demonstrations in the station tunnels, thecreative dynamics of Andrejsala and Spīķeri, the silhouettes ofthe Sun Stone building and the Ministry of Agriculture, the 9 th Maygatherings by the Victory Monument and singing people returningfrom the Song Celebration on the night-time trams.“Road Map” is an alternative plan, which allows everyone to findhis or her own Riga, hidden under the city facades and found inthe minds of people – a Riga that has passed, forgotten due tonew historical, social and political grounds. “Road map” is a planand at the same time a detour from the usual sights observed bytourists. The road map idea is the integration of inhabitants in thecreation of new routes that would not just be roads in the physicaland direct sense. They would reveal and create a new circulationsystem for the city. “Road Map” incorporates short-termand long-term objectives. The short-term objective is to open uporiginal city locations for cooperation and accessibility, neighbourhoodstories, memories and events. The long-term objectiveis to develop Riga as a city with many active centres, each onestanding out with its unique character and originality.“Road Map” invites local inhabitants, city researchers and gueststo seek their own Riga, not by confronting the city centre with itssuburbs, but trying to find and highlight the specific local featuresand unique atmosphere of each place.At times the inhabitants of the suburbs live a completely parallellife to the city centre. These are people for whom going to the citycentre once a week is to “go into town”, whose daily lives are spentmoving around within the borders of catchment areas, from workto the shop and from the shop back home, and whose eveningsare spent working on the allotment or chatting to the neighboursin the yard. The suburbs are also occupied by the inhabitants ofthe so-called high-rise areas, who crowd into the public transportshelters to travel to the city centre and return to their homes late inthe evening, and therefore never finding out who lives in the nextdoor apartment.“Road Map” tries to address the inhabitants of the suburbs andoutskirts of Riga, surprising them like a force majeure in their familiarpaths from the shop to their home, and by integrating intothe various forms of the area’s infrastructure, trying to address thesection of society that might never wander into an art gallery ormuseum or attend any other alternative cultural event, and involvethem in the processes of culture.Marginal territories are drawn into the centre of attention andthe anthropological texture of the local environment becomes asource of inspiration for well-known directors. Instead of “Hamlet”,the “Tales of Bolderāja” are produced, the inhabitants of high-riseblocks unnoticed until now, become the heroes of books and theinhabitants of buildings are invited to find out more about the differentcultural traditions of their neighbours and discover a newdimension of experiences. Road map invites you to find out moreabout each other and get to know each other better. Torņakalnsgoes visiting Ķengarags and the Centre visits Purvciems.Guests to the city who wish to look at Riga from another angle arealso invited to head for the suburbs, to see what happens outsidethe representative part of the city centre and to get to know its‘secret places’. It is an invitation to go on a psycho-geographicaljourney, similar to the flâneur formulated by Walter Benjamin, succumbingto seemingly aimless wandering around the city or usingthe dérive method favoured by situationists, which describes thespontaneous propulsion through various zones of the city.“Road Map” in these journeys serves as a guide, as a type ofcompass that is pointed towards a different Riga each time.These might be excursions that illuminate the different segmentsof Riga’s history – the Soviet period in Riga, communal apartments,interiors, air raid shelters, the industrial heritage of Riga,old factories, specific architecture and manufacturing facilities,Hebrew Riga, a city that has arranged itself around more than 40islands, Bohemian Riga, design city, a cyclist’s Riga, etc. “RoadMap” not only invites you to get to know previously little knownparts of the town, but also to briefly open the door to rooms wherepeople are not usually allowed, such as water towers, weatherstations, the backstage of theatres, etc.Poetry, music and city noises that transform into the art of sounds,literature that allows you to take on the role of a book characterand see the city with different eyes, are all instruments used forthe exploration of the city and the search for unusual viewpoints.Local libraries, interest-related educational institutions, local culturalcentres and schools wake up as vital epicentres for culture.New creative platforms are also created, which for a time come tolife as testing laboratories in various city quarters and, with the cooperationof artists, actors and musicians, together with the localinhabitants, create a new Riga – a city whose main and invincibleforce will be culture.74 75