Rūta Kalmuka-Dzen

On April 23 at 18:00, the next exhibition in the Riga Photography Biennial 2026 program—Rūta Kalmuka’s solo exhibition ‘Dzen’—will open at the ISSP Gallery with a performance by the group ‘BUTŌ Lab’. Curator: Iveta Gabaliņa. The exhibition will be on view from April 24 to July 2.

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The series of works in analogue technique is based on the ancient solstice traditions of “driving of the birds” and “calling of the birds”, which were characteristic of places inhabited by Livonians. In these rituals, large birds symbolised diseases and evil spirits, while small birds were attributed the meanings of light and awakening. With the help of photography and butoh movement, the artist interprets this ritual as a metaphor for inner cleansing – the desire to cast off the darkness and make space for a new beginning. The title Dzen simultaneously reveals two meanings – the imperative form of the Latvian word dzen! (“drive off!”) as a call to drive away negativity, and a reference to the practice of Zen Buddhism, where peace and clarity is sought through silence and repetition.

Rūta Kalmuka (1974) began studying photography in 1992 at the Centre of Creative Learning Annas 2 under Andrejs Grants. She has dedicated almost 20 years to photojournalism, working with printed media including Santa, Dienas žurnāli, NRA and Ir magazine. Currently she works with analogue photography and large format equipment, as well as being interested in historical photographic processes and the making of photobooks. She has taken part in several group exhibitions in Latvia and abroad. Her works have been included in publications such as Foto Kvartāls, Fotofilmic JRTL and World Press Photo. In 2025, she was nominated for the prestigious European Photography Platform Futures.

The performance art collective ‘BUTŌ Lab’ explores movement, performance, and ritual as forms of contemporary expression, combining butō, somatics, and experimental theatre practices. The performance ‘DZEN – DZEN’, created for the exhibition, is conceived as a spatial continuation of artist Rūta Kalmuka’s photographs. The work is grounded in butō movement practice, a live soundscape, and ritual symbolism, where movement, sound, and image merge into a unified experience. The viewer is invited to engage in a somatically perceptible experience, transitioning into and beginning a new cycle. Sarma Gabrēna will improvise the soundscape during the performance.

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The Riga Photography Biennial is an international contemporary art event, focusing on the analysis of visual culture and artistic representation. The term ‘photography’ in the title of the biennial is used as an all-embracing concept encompassing a mixed range of artistic image-making practices that have continued to transform the lexicon of contemporary art in the 21st century. The biennial covers issues ranging from cultural theory to current socio-political processes in the Baltics and the wider European region. Using the format of an art festival, Riga Photography Biennial attempts to record changes taking place all over the world and invites us to collectively interpret them – something we not only need to see but also imagine whilst translating the complicated and oversaturated contemporary visual language into meaningful relationships between our daily reality, the camera lens, historic material, contemporary art, technologies and the future. How has our understanding of photography and image changed because of digital technologies, and how does it manifest itself in the work of art? For the organisers of the biennial these are important questions to present and analyse, whilst at the same time introducing Latvian audiences to leading works of international art as well as the ideas of prominent art theoreticians presented in the form of symposiums, discussions and publications in parallel with exhibitions and performances. For more information: www.rpbiennial.com

Supporters and partners of the Riga Photography Biennial 2026: State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia, Riga City Council, ISSP Gallery, printing house ‘Adverts’, ‘Riga Art Week’ (RAW), Arterritory.com, Echo Gone Wrong, NOBA

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