The Survival Kit contemporary art festival will launch its seventeenth edition, titled “Wind Arrow: On Art and Healing,” from 28 August to 27 September 2026 at the Riga Congress Hall, featuring a preview programme beginning on 27 August, according to the programme announcement published by Riga’s municipal culture department.
Organised by the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art since 2009, this year’s festival shifts Latvia’s late-summer cultural calendar toward a social emphasis. Curated by Elena Sorokina and Simona Markela Dvorák in collaboration with the Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care, the exhibition explores the overlapping territory between artistic work and healing practices. Rather than displaying art solely as objects, the month-long event combines exhibitions with performances, conversations, mediated walks, and guided tours.
Opening Weekend Performances and the Healing Nightclub
The curatorial focus on care and ritual begins immediately on 27 August with three performances at the Riga Congress Hall, presented in cooperation with the Centre Pompidou in Paris. According to the programme schedule, the opening night features work by musician and composer Naima Nefertari, choreographer Zora Snake, and artist Maya Minder, connecting performance art with sensory experience, ritual, food, fermentation, and knowledge transmission. The opening activities then move to the Kaņepes Culture Centre for a “Healing Nightclub,” an interdisciplinary evening blending sound, music, and dance as an experiment in collective bodily presence.
Public Programmes, Movement Practices, and White Night Events
The public schedule continues past opening weekend with interactive and discursive events across the city. On 28 August, artist Zaiga Putrāma leads a movement practice utilizing tango communication principles to explore non-verbal exchange and listening. On 5 September, the festival participates in Riga’s White Night programme, featuring T.I.E.’s performance “Veins of Daugava / Uterine Waters,” which uses the Daugava River as a sonic and symbolic axis for memory and diasporic practices. Another White Night project titled “Appendix — A Cut into the Side Layers” addresses coexistence and inclusion through a movement performance by Latvian artists and women from third countries living in Latvia, followed by a public discussion led by artist Viktoria Fomenko.
Additional September events include a guided presence practice titled “A Walk in an Ugly Landscape,” led by writer Agnese Krivade on 12 September and inspired by the publication “Entangled Landscapes: Navigation.” On 17 September, associate professor and media theorist Ilva Skulte moderates a discussion examining art education, institutional change, sustainability, and value as forms of care.
Accessibility, Exhibition Hours, and Ticket Information
To make contemporary art more approachable, the festival employs specially trained art mediators supported by the VV Foundation. These mediators will engage visitors in conversation on Thursday and Friday evenings, and the organisers also provide mediator-led individual tours, group tours, and school visits. The exhibition at Riga Congress Hall is open Tuesday through Saturday from 12:00 to 20:00, and Sundays from 12:00 to 18:00, remaining closed on Mondays.
Standard admission is priced at €8, while students and seniors can enter for €5. Admission is free for preschool children, school pupils, art-school students, people with disabilities, and their accompanying persons, with a €5 family ticket available for holders of a 3+ Family Card.
Did You Know? The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art has organised the Survival Kit festival since 2009, routinely utilising vacant or underused buildings as venues to incorporate urban space and public access directly into the artistic experience.
Frequently Asked Questions
When and where will Survival Kit 17 take place?
The festival runs from 28 August to 27 September 2026, with a preview programme starting on 27 August. The main venue is the Riga Congress Hall.
How much does admission cost?
Standard tickets are €8, while student and senior tickets are €5. Admission is free for preschoolers, school pupils, art-school students, people with disabilities and their companions, and families with a 3+ Family Card can buy a €5 ticket.
Who curated the seventeenth edition of the festival?
The edition is curated by Elena Sorokina and Simona Markela Dvorák in collaboration with the Initiative for Practices and Visions of Radical Care.
? How do you plan to engage with the themes of care and community during this year’s festival events?
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