Fragility

The exhibition presents the artistic outcome of a practice-based doctoral research project, bringing together writing, contemporary embroidery, photography, video and spatial installation. In the artist’s words: How can art carry what a person cannot bear alone? This question marked the beginning of my artistic research project Trauslums. It emerged from a deeply personal experience of loss, but over time developed into a broader artistic reflection on human vulnerability, memory, love, attachment, and our relationship with the world. For me, fragility is not merely an expression of weakness or vulnerability. It is a condition of human existence in which strength and uncertainty, loss and continuation, memory and the present coexist. Fragility is also a form of sensitivity that allows us to notice what might otherwise seem insignificant, to open ourselves to the world, and to encounter the unknown. My artistic practice unfolds through a continuous movement between writing, embroidery, photography, and the material world. Within this process, particular significance belongs to moments that I call Flashes (Uzplaiksnījumi). A Flash may emerge from an overheard phrase, an encounter, an object, a photograph, a memory, or an ordinary event that suddenly acquires an unexpected intensity. It is a moment in which the significance of what has been seen or felt is not yet clear, yet something invites me to return to it. I record these moments in writing and photographs, preserve them, and return to them later. Some become diary entries, others are transformed into embroidery, while others take on new forms within the installation. In my practice, the Flash becomes both an impulse for artistic thinking and a methodological tool through which personal experience can gradually be transformed into artistic knowledge. Writing is an integral part of my artistic practice. It is not merely a way of documenting experience or explaining embroidery. Through writing, I think, observe, remember, and allow experience to acquire new meanings. In embroidery, this thinking continues through material - through the movement of thread, repetition, rhythm, and time. For me, embroidery is a slow, meditative process in which my hands sometimes know what I cannot yet articulate in words. Each stitch becomes a trace of experience, while embroidery itself becomes another language of thought. The exhibition installation Trauslums is a spatial continuation of my artistic research. It brings together embroidery, texts, photographs, video, found objects, translucent fabrics, rust, concrete, light, and movement. One of its central elements is a moving, embroidered organza ribbon that continuously winds and unwinds. It embodies the flow of thought and memory, in which experiences return, transform, and acquire new layers of meaning. Within the installation, I also wish to preserve the character of my Fragility Laboratory - an environment in which materials, objects, texts, and images continually form new relationships with one another. It is not a closed world of art. As visitors enter the space, these relationships continue to evolve. I invite visitors to slow down. To notice details, discover seemingly accidental connections, and follow their own associations and memories. It is important to me that Trauslums does not remain solely my personal story. I hope it becomes a space in which others may also encounter their own experiences, their own vulnerability, and their own capacity to carry on. For to be human is to be fragile. Exhibition Creative Team: Artist and Researcher - Sanita Tauriņa Theoretical Research Supervisor - Dr. art., Professor Inese Sirica Artistic Practice Supervisor - Professor Ieva Krūmiņa Exhibition Scenography - Artūrs Igoveņš (Dizainstudija A) Video Artist - Marta Nātra Screen Printing - In collaboration with Sabīne Vekmane (Luste Silkscreenstudio) Unwavering Presence and Support - Līga Šustere, Lolita Graudiņa-Runtule, and Viktors Runtulis Acknowledgements Special thanks to the Art Academy of Latvia, the Doctoral School of the Art Academy of Latvia, my research supervisors, and everyone who has contributed to the creation of this exhibition.