Currents

‘Currents’ is a site specific installation by an architect and artist which brings together over 2,000 pine logs to form a floating island on the waters of Dauguva river in Riga, Latvia.

The monumental structure is taken as a ‘found object’ that reflects on the relationships, ideologies and sensitivities that arose over Riga’s centuries-long involvement in the timber industry.

Since the Middle Ages, Baltic forests have supplied Western Europe with timber for ships and buildings. As a mode of transportation, thousands of these logs would be brought together on the water, forming immense drifting rafts carried by the strength of the currents and guided by rafts-men. These rafts-men learned how to harness the river, working with or against the current, and as the water carried the wood, the human collaboration with one natural element helped them to capitalize on another. 

The project draws on this history and reflects on the ways in which the dependence of people and their environment can be transformed into the exploitation of one by the other.  Recreating a scene that would have often been seen on the river, the mass of floating logs is also accompanied by a sound installation by the artist that transmits a text and songs that tell of these complex relationships between humans and nature.

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