Here are photographs of the final performance "Petals Sprouting Out of Skin" 2025 on two different ocassions.
1. Performing arts festival "Distractions and Bridges" 2025 at SKH D-theatre Stockholm University of Arts https://www.uniarts.se/english/news/events/events-spring-2025/distractions-and-bridges-festival-2025/petals-sprouting-out-of-skin/
2. Performance at Riga Contemporary art space 2025
Petal and Motorbike
M: sorry, I think I gather all the dust by standing here
P:you look, towering from here, I have never seen you from this perspective. don’t worry my dear motorbike, I smell you, recognise you from earths crust you have always been around, now in your strange wheelshape. You are so shifty - sometimes here and sometimes not, usually I see you only late at evening hidden in the dark, wrapped there carefully.
M: yes, he does it, he is very afraid someone will take me, he is good at it, he covers me and puts me behind this pile.
P: Yes, I don’t know what can feel like. for me It’s always the same journey, yet each time feels... new. All the petals before me have made this distance between the branch and been catched by the ground below. We fly different trajectories, sometimes twirling for a long time or dragging against the side of the road,
along with passing vehicles.
M: sorry for causing the wind for all your others,
P: ayyy, it is not too bad, they enjoy an extra lift, a prolonged spin,
M: on the radio inside of me, my rider was listening to, I heard that a flower petal is attached to the flower base called receptacle. That you and your sisters are connected to the receptacle by the floral stalk, which contains cells that hold you in place until you depart
from the tree abscission as they say, or if someone pulls you off, some, external force, - a wind or a human hand.
P: oh you have a good memory,
M: Yes, I have trained it by memorising all the streets I have taken, I overdraw the map with each time anew.
P:So interesting what you say about the radio, I have only heard radio from afar, I sometimes recognise myself in songs, but never heard something so anatomical about me .
I didn’t know it had such names I only have my own petal body feeling, I intake the nutrients coming in from my bottom, from the base, the opposite of a fall I feel the juice traveling upwards resisting gravity.
M: I wanted to ask you, do you feel so called pain when someone pulls you?
P: No, I don’t have such nervous system, as the animals, but I get something like a ‘shock’ and tend to get defensive, I for example climb higher and higher in branches to avoid it, or try to squeeze myself away from the windy sides. It is probably close to when sidewalks slightly forces against you, giving you scratches, then you watch out from them. But winds I don’t mind, maybe there we are the same that we ride alone with them..
Your driver sounds like an interesting guy!
M: Yes, I think he is very interested in your kind, listening to this botanics radio show. Sometimes I sync with my driver, I hum and he hums silently. We move as one, I as a metal am very good temperature transitioner, body heat.
Is hard to tell who drives who.
I sense him. He comes from far away he feels uneasy when he stops, he is not so welcome here, at the move we make he feels at home.
P: you are so kind, sometimes people think that I am the most romantic thing, they are so silly, maybe you are more what they are longing for. I don’t get all that thing, you are telling me about, it I like all the pollens and insects in multiplicity,
I like them all flying around...
I saw a strange shell skeleton while lingering down from top, have you seen her? I don’t think she will ever become humans home, something is odd about her pro-long stillness. Do you recognise her metals?
M: no, they come from other far away soils, they do not respond.
Of course I have seen her many times, we ride past her multiple times a day, she is in my map, she is a bit spaceshipy, but silent, only as winds blow thought the construction site like a flute.
P: I can no longer peep at her gigantic body from here, but I sense that some of us will move there soon I feel from the seeds ripening at the mother base. I feel like she will be my station, not the strangely- speaking human station. The seeds are traveling there, I know, to the freshly duped up soil.
I think that poor metal thing they are waiting for, - the poor train – one of your new body companions, will never get over the river.
M: Kha, oh I feel occasional gag in my motor, I might go join you there under her arching back. It is not that I want to go I am sad to leave this union, but my phase as a motorbike is unavoidably ending soon.
I wouldn’t want to be a track, if they ever re-melt me in another shape, I have always dreamed to be a street lamp so I could see a bit more from above, I am always close to earth since I’m so heavy.
or I would also like to be a sunshade,the folding movement is so satisfying I have never been bent in this magnetic umbrella like way.
P: ha if you become a sunshade we will look a bit alike in my bigger body with all the!
M: It is now in my nature to be molded and remolded. I have always done so, but recently these transformations are getting out of wheel.
P: Soon you will soon be even more beautiful rusty colour!
But then you will need to be patient and still, there are even iron bits in me, maybe you will recognise them,
you can watch as I decompose in small particles by fungi and bacteria!
M: yes, I would like that!
P: The other day from the top I saw a small van with an advertisement, it stopped to deliver something downstairs – the same like your guy, on the side of the car the print showed some strange version of her, very slippery, I would be fun to slide on her, but I think they will never get so far, for the dark figures to stand on the balconies, i think she will rust like you. As we all play, as you watch us and pollen flying through the metal grid!
This is a text I wrote using a divised text method for writing an associative timeline of the performance (Method 8 in the text). I came up with this exisise at the end of our reharsal period. The text sequencially follows the dramaturgy of the performance, but is freely narrates it connecting to asociative responses from ones own expireinces and imaginery impulses. Here it was important for me that me, that we speek from the point of view of our personal lived expiriences in the latvian specific cultural envirement. The writing task we did simoultaniously together with Laine Luīze Freidenberga and Ģirts Dubults, read their texts in the PDF. The This text became a part of the performance in the premiere version in SKH Stockholm it was used as a video projection and in the second show it was read by Ģirts – opening a purse with a light and taking the text out of it:
She is coming closer,
she is confused and walking.
She heads to Maxima to have some destination.
She’s playing a role for herself— with her little purse, her gestures, her facial expressions, there is music in her head. She doesn’t know I’m watching her from across the street. She doesn’t look around—she already knows this place, she scans it indirectly, what to be wary of. Without glancing, she goes around the drunks smoking outside the hostel.
She leans very close to the cashier at Maxima and whispers something. I can’t tell if they know each from before or if it’s just a momentary solidarity. She shows the insides of her purse. I can’t see what’s in it, but the cashier’s face shifts with a significant expression and she flips the sign: “checkout closed, you’ll be served at the next one”.
They walk to the freezer section, opening the lid, they listen to the droning hum.
She opens another lid—listens again. The humming is deep, monotonous, but with differing tones.
The cashier starts digging. She’s trying to break loose something frozen to the bottom of the freezer—
an unidentifiable, ice-bound object.
The loudspeaker glitches— a sudden, exaggerated whine blares,
making customers cover their ears. They can’t take it; they leave raisins in their baskets and evacuate.
The woman hangs her purse in the milk section and begins to undress.
She tears opens raisins, licks and sticks them to her body.
The cashier is loomed into the chipping of the freezer’s treasure.
The automatic doors beep while opening and closing.
Outside, a cigarette butt has a conversation with the first yellow butterfly of spring.
Tomorrow the butterfly will be gone,
but the cigarette will keep decomposing
for 174 butterfly lifetimes.
Writing with objects is described in Method 2 chapter. This is another method I used to devise a dialogie for a performance. In "Petals Sprouting Out of Skin" performance the text is used as a prerecorded audio, voices are recorded by me and Laine, while Laine is performing a kind of interviewer, who is silently holding a micraphone and directing it towards the speeking objects.
Short instruction of the Method : Chosing two or more objects of interest from the landscape → writing a dialogue between them→ incorporating observations from the surroundings (in this case I used Riga's cityscape) → recording the dialogue, vocalising the two distinct voices → staging a scene where the sculptural objects are physically present, and the voices come from speakers.
I want to mention that great importance for developing this method has been Sidsel Christensen's research and artistic practice, who introduced me to live action role play methods and who is working with speculative dialogues of hyperobjects. I also I draw inspiration from Site–writing method by architect Jane Rendell, I learnt about it after this text was written from artist and reasercher Maike Statz. Learning to adress periphery in writing was inspired by a writing workshop led by Anders Duus.
To fully follow my exploration please read the text on the right. Here in this exposition I will share few fragments from my work "Petals Sprouting Out of Skin" 2025 making process.
"Petal being" drawing is used as a starting point to devise a charecter and a movement from an image, read in chapter: "METHOD 1 – creating a character from an image (Flower petal being)" (p. 16).
I made a performance companion–publication, that audiences could take with them. They contain drawings, photos and and texts from the creation process : compilation of shared poems, associative timelines by me, Laine and Ģirts, Petal & Motorbike dialogue.
Here are some photos from different stages of the making process: sketches, prepering and testing phisical material (Movement with Objects (Method 6)), reharsal process, video filming, sound recording and editing :
This photo documentation is linked to the in-between space of Visual and Performing Arts, and to what it means to attempt the transition while keeping the tools that fine art can offer to stage pieces.
In preparing the material, I drew on a lot of pre-existing knowledge of material-based practice, especially during the early stages of content development—sketches of ideas in drawings.
Yet, starting the piece from visual impulses became questionable in rehearsal. The material produced in those sessions uncovered, in a more nuanced way, our shared and individual experiences of coming from the same region, and the layered feelings of belonging and dis-belonging. An internal logic began to establish itself through the shared writing exercises (Method 4 – generating shared poems), where we searched for overlaps in our lived cultural references.
My attempt to speculatively craft our own world from this material was also an attempt to reimagine a new place of identity and belonging—one that could connect us with the environment while also building special relations to the non-human elements within it (Method 3 – working with a real site in developing a semi-fictional space). In the performance devising process, I was inspired by Elinor Fuchs’ A Visit to a Small Planet: Some Questions to Ask a Play. I came to experience that the worldbuilding existed most strongly in the shared space through text and gestures—through the presence of the performers, interaction, shared temporality and language—rather than through visuality alone.
The question of transitioning from one art form to another began to feel less relevant. There are infinite possibilities of what can be brought into stage practice. The shift became less about changing the medium and more about mapping the new skillset required to organise and facilitate a collaborative process, with its own structure and ethics.
This raised another question: what skills are not taught in fine arts education? How does one move from being a solo studio artist to working in a collaborative practice? Such work requires not only artistic contribution, but also the ability to understand and guide a process—facilitation, negotiation, listening, time structuring, and creating a shared framework for making. These are tools that extend beyond the studio and into the social and collective dimensions of art-making.
The two different spaces gave the work distinct qualities. In the black box theatre, there was the opportunity to experiment with more sophisticated lighting as an independent element of the performance. But when presenting the piece in the Riga Contemporary Art Space, there was the possibility to play with the room’s horizontal proportions, which I found complementary to the work and contributing to the dramaturgy, made in relation to principles of landscape dramaturgy (Ana Vujanović). While the piece flirts with the in-betweenness of installation and performance, even in a gallery context, it is important for me that it remains primarily situated within a performing arts framework.
My masters project
at SKH Stockholms University of Arts Performing Arts program with focus on theatre-making and contemporary dramaturgy
consists of two parts of a parts:
1. performance "Petals Sprouting Out of Skin" 2025
and
2. a text "Petals Sprouting Out of Skin : Creating Imagery of Latvian and Eastern European Identity within a Devised Processs"
open PDF text here :
This artistic research project in Performing Arts SKH Stockholm University of Arts documents my transition from fine arts into a performative practice. I am focusing on developing a personal toolkit of methods that support this shift to a facilitator and a director/theatre-maker. The first part is my individual exploration that includes methods such as: creating character from image, writing with objects, and working with a real site in developing a semi-fictional space (exploring site-specificity through my observations and video documentation of Riga’s specific environment). The second part is a collaboration with two artists, Ģirts Dubults and Laine Luīze Freidenberga. We use a devised process concept,Sister Planets, to translate our embodied cultural experiences and identities into performative language. This method emphasises building shared poetics through methods of generating shared poems, visualisation, movement with objects, and integrating methods from the collaborators’ individual practices. Alongside methodological development, a strong interest in my identity as a maker emerged, deeply influencing my artistic inquiry. This stiltedness—as a young female artist from Latvia and Eastern Europe—shapes the themes of belonging and alienation in the Scandinavian cultural context and intersectionality in my work. I investigate how subjectively expirienced cultural, gendered, and geopolitical factors inform performance and dramaturgy. These personal reflections have evolved into shared thematic concerns within my collaborations, where individual histories and embodied memories merge into a collective exploration. Through this research, I seek new dramaturgical forms that channel socio-political narratives within primarily visual and poetic means of expression.
Throught out my MA artistic reaserch text I chose to leve personal notes of observations from the process.
I am filming out in the open field, people are passing by, it is a weekend, Ģirts is coming closer to me from on a path from a distance, dressed in my coat and carrying a purse, They are very close, opening a purse and holding so my camera and I can see inside of it , they close it and walk away, I suddenly forget that it is a video we agreed to make, I feel sudden hit of feeling that they will just walk away and I will never see this stranger again, and all I am left is with this intimate, but deeply confusing and almost sexual gesture of them showing me the interior of the bag, that I can neither understand or explain.