From November 25 to 30, 2025 the first artistic reaserch residency took place at LAUKKU home. The Latvian collective – Agate Bankava, Agnese Krivade, Aigars Larionovs, Inta Balode, Līga Ūbele, Sabīne Neilande – worked with the topics of “why art/dance” and “what is an artist” and beyond that. The activities included getting to know each other through different practices ranging from writing and movement tasks in the studio to creative exploration of the nearby forest and community outreach in the Vecate parish library and dinner with the head of Valmiera regional library. The artists shared the desires in dance through personal, national and global prism. Next to 6 artists also 3 dogs – Marocco, Mango, Boņa – and a cat – Rižais – activley participated adding their voices to the experimental sound scores.

working in the studio (author of the wall paintings Eso Antons Benjamiņš) to get to know each other and fill meters of paper roll and Miro board with notes with values, questions, doubts and hopes. The paper roll will keep rolling for the remaining 14 weeks of residences and might become one of the performers in 2027

a moment from the visit to Vecate parish library where Agnese Krivade led a workshop on heart, local handcraft collective shared their work and discussion the role of the arts and artist took place

a walk in the forests culminated in 6 solos where the amazing set designs where activated by presence of the human bodies. The path was extremely muddy but that would never stop true artists from diving into their practice