Eva L'Hoest

The Inmost Cell takes as its point of departure a calenture, a maritime mirage where the sea becomes a welcoming field of grass amidst the ruins of three underwater islands flooded during the creation of the Riga dam. In a fusion of rural and maritime landscape, Latvian mythological figures seem to emerge from the entrails of a machine. By combining various digital processes, Eva L'Hoest transforms her photographic reportage of the suburbs of Riga into three-dimensional fluid architectures. These lost elements of Latvian culture mark a place of synthesis between man, nature and man-made ruins. The text follows the format of the Dainas, short traditional poems describing the relationship between man and nature, and frames the underworld. As the characters progress through the liquid realm, monochrome gives way to color, a sign of hope and resilience. Through slow and contemplative dolly movements, its different realities merge, forms fall one after the other, and passages are created between places and memory.

Text by Claire Contamine
Work commissioned by the Riga Biennial