Face to face with the natural. Art objects on the Ālande river trail

The Baltic Sea, including the Ālande River valley, has formed relatively recently, and the flora and fauna of Latvia is one of the youngest in the world. Nowadays, due to climate warming and human activity, it is replenished with new species. That which is already existing must learn to welcome what is new and different – or risk fading away.

Three works of art located on the banks of the Ālande River mark the constant changes in nature and invite trail visitors to get to know the meeting of the layers of the past, present and future in the coastal landscape during the hike. 

The art objects lead to the exploration of change through play and awareness of the moment. The creators of the walk invite us to seek balance within ourselves, finding inspiration in the diversity of nature.

This art project was created as part of the “Liepāja 2027 – European Capital of Culture” programme.

Concept: Foundation “Liepāja 2027,” Municipal Agency “Dienvidkurzeme Region Tourism Centre”

Artists: Krista Dintere, Edijs Ābele, Ieva Viese, Rihards Vitols

Rihards Vītols
Plastiverse (2025)
Mixed media installation, augmented reality experience

To view the artwork in augmented reality, download the ART+ app here:

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Plastiverse depicts a landscape shaped by post-biological evolution — a collaboration between nature and machine learning. Hybrid trees have emerged out of necessity, carrying traits from distant biomes. This is a future where technology no longer challenges or opposes nature, but collaborates with it — a world where life transforms itself to survive rapidly changing conditions. In this speculative ecology, the wild is no longer separate from the artificial. It is co-created, complex, and alive with new potential.

About the artist

​​Rihards Vītols’ artistic practice interprets the relationships between nature, technology, and science. The symbiosis of these domains in Rihards Vītols’ work allows the viewer to observe what is happening when the environment meets a foreign body. Not only does the artist use science to support the concept of my works, but also I am trying to use scientific methods to conduct experiments and document and visualize their outcomes. Rihards Vītols’ sees his role as a mediator between my work and the environment.

Rihards Vītols has received Ph.D. from the University of Washington In Digital Art and Experimental Media (USA). Between 2015–2017 he was studying at the Academy of Media Arts Cologne (KHM) where he got his Diploma. Before that, he graduated with a Master’s in New Media Art from Liepaja University (LV), and part of that time studies he spent at Bauhaus-Universität Weimar in Germany. Rihards Vītols has participated in solo and group exhibitions in Latvia, Austria, Belgium, France, Italy, the Netherlands, Venice Architecture biennale etc.

Ribbit (2025)
Krista Dintere, Edijs Ābele (design)
Interactive installation

On warm spring and early summer evenings in Kurzeme, around ponds with overgrown banks, a deep croaking, ribbiting sound reminiscent of sawing can be heard – the mating song of the tree frog. It is the unusual voice that gave it the ancient Latvian name “parkšķis”, translated as “ribbit”. Although its green colors and small size, which reaches 5 cm, perfectly camouflage the tree frog and it is not easy to spot it in nature, it stands out with its loud voice, which can be heard even 1 km away. The eastern tree frog (Hyla Orentialis), found in southwestern Latvia, is listed in the “Latvian Red Book” as an endangered species and the story of its return to Latvian nature is fascinating.

At the end of the 18th century and the beginning of the 19th century, tree frogs were found in Latvia, but quite rarely, but in the 20th century tree frogs disappeared from Latvian nature completely. This was due to the intensive agricultural development of Latvia, and the loss of wetland areas – the tree frog mating grounds disappeared. With a great love for nature, in 1987, an Ecology Laboratory was founded at the Riga Zoo, which was engaged in the reintroduction of the species. By 1992, more than 4000 captive-bred tree frogs had been released in Kurzeme. The introduction of the species was successful, they have spread over a wide area in the southwest of Kurzeme and with the help of a human hand tree frogs have found their place in Latvian nature again.

The interactive object consists of 5 “ribbits” – wooden musical instruments, percussions – guiro. By dragging a mallet along the back of the frog, you can create 5 different acoustic tree frog calls, listen to the tree frog choirs recorded in the South Kurzeme region and play with the frogs on the same beat of nature.

About the artist

Krista Dintere is an artist from Liepāja, who works in the fields of sound art, experimental composition, media art and creative research. The artist often works with recorded sounds, which she uses both to create “special place” installations and soundscape compositions, revealing the complex relationships between the factuality of field recording and fictitious sound worlds created by artistic interpretation of the actual. Since 2012, her works have participated in media art and sound art exhibitions, light festivals and other projects in Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, Italy and Poland. She teaches sound art at RTU Liepāja Academy, Liepāja Music, Art and Design Secondary School and Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music.

Ieva Viese
Triality (2025)
Mixed media installation

The environmental object “Triality” is created as a symbolic sculptural system, where metal trilobites—ancient, extinct marine arthropods—settle into the environment by the Ālande River.

The structural foundation of the object is based on the concrete forms of a nearby trial (motorcycle sport) park. On one hand, the artist views them as industrial fossils—remnants of various constructions and objects. On the other hand, they serve as inspiration in their entirety—structures that function as monuments to movement, akin to archaeological cult sites.

The trilobites return to the concrete forms as silent messengers from ancient times, symbolizing the layers of life and time that converge in one space, affirming the unceasing flow of motion.

Three creatures. Three parts. Three planes of perspective—the human experience, the vision of non-human beings, and cultural history.

How does thought move when a third viewpoint from the outside joins between the left and right hemispheres of the human mind? The artist uses triality as an internal impulse to seek third perspectives, liminal forms, and the presence of the unknown. The sculptural forms and their arrangement invite both movement and stillness, an imprint left behind, an awareness of one’s presence in time.

The work is a meditation on the possibility of connection—between life forms, eras, and the layers of human perception. Fossils and motorcycles meet on the same piece of land.

The river moves. The river speaks.

About the artist

Ieva Viese is a poet, curator, film critic and artist. She holds a master’s degree in cultural theory from the Latvian Academy of Culture and a master’s degree from the Latvian Academy of Arts (POST department). She has participated in group and solo exhibitions in Latvia and abroad. Ieva Viese publishes articles and film criticism in Satori, LSM, Punktum, etc., and is one of the creators of the program of the contemporary art gallery DOM. Her poetry and art combine images of nature, universal archetypes and motifs of the flow of geological time, revealing the alien and the related in the manifestations of humans and other species.