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Soloshow at gallery 427, Riga, LV

15/01 – 21/02/2026

What remains present when an image is transferred from one body to another?

The exhibition considers the photographic image as a familiar. Not as representation or proof, but as an accompanying form. It exists in the relationships between materials, between people, between presence and memory.

The concept of familiar (familiar spirit) refers to a non-human companion, a being that is permanently attached to a witch or other practitioner of magic. A familiar is a relationship structure based on long-term coexistence. Often this being takes the form of an animal, such as a cat, bird, dog, or toad. The exhibition offers a photographic image in this mode of coexistence, as a presence that follows and changes along with the medium.

The work is based on an analog photographic negative, with film as the original body of the image. The negative is not perceived as an intermediate stage on the way to a “finished” image. Here, photography becomes a traveler. Her journey begins the moment the film is inserted into the camera. Then she encounters light, movement, coincidences, mistakes, and moments of insight. Then it goes through development, drying, scanning, file processing, and printing. On this journey, it passes through many hands, instruments, surfaces, and technologies. At each stage, it receives an imprint. She develops scars, scratches, and grain. She can burn, become saturated, or fade.

The exhibition considers archives not as an organized system, but as an organism. As an environment where images accumulate, layer, and become semi-living. Although all images are analog, their life inevitably intersects with the digital cycle. Analog becomes ghost software. The image continues to exist in the mind, in thoughts and on screens, as a file on a hard drive, as a copy on a USB flash drive, as an attachment in an e-mail, as a backup copy. In this cycle, images disintegrate into digital dust and settle in the collective visual field. Here, the body of the photograph is digitized and becomes a data carrier, a face that contains countless passwords, access codes, and permissions. It becomes searchable, comparable, and recognizable, sometimes even confused. Similarity begins to function as a feature that opens accounts and archives.

The exhibition itself functions as a familiar to these works. It is a temporary skin, put on at a specific time and place. When it is removed, impressions remain. Surfaces, fabrics, material remnants, evidence of coexistence.

– Agate Tūna

Group exhibition at TUR, Riga, Latvia.
Organised in collaboration with 1646.

29/10 – 29/11/2025

Artists: Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Agnieszka Polska, Līga Spunde, Agate Tūna

Curated by:
Johan Gustavsson (Co-director 1646)
Clara Pallí Monguilod (Co-director 1646)
Edd Schouten (Artistic Director TUR)

The exhibition Under the Sun began as a conversation between two contemporary art spaces located on either side of Europe: TUR in Riga and 1646 in The Hague. At a time when Europe’s social and political fabric feels increasingly fragile, it becomes necessary to reinforce cultural relationships and deepen mutual understanding through artistic exchange. Art, at its most vital, opens a space to reflect with nuance, to listen closely, and to respond thoughtfully. From this shared belief in the importance of dialogue grew the foundations of this exhibition: a collaboration shaped by four artistic practices and three curatorial visions from two independent art spaces. The exhibition, in its tone and themes, echoes the impulse that initially brought TUR and 1646 together: a desire to engage with the present through art.

The four artists in this exhibition – Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Agnieszka Polska, Līga Spunde, and Agate Tūna – were invited for the distinct ways their practices engage with the conditions of contemporary life: how we make sense of the world around us, and how we navigate our place within it. Their works explore how we respond to a time shaped by ecological collapse, war on our borders, rising political unease, technological saturation, and a longing for spiritual grounding. The artists are united by a shared attentiveness to the emotional and ethical dimensions of contemporary life, even as their methods and materials diverge. Within the exhibition, their visions come together as an extended layer of perspective that shifts between planetary, psychological, and metaphysical realms, a constellation made up of distinct sensibilities that overlap and diverge. Together, they invite the viewer to reflect not only on what we see, but on how we respond and what forces shape our capacity to remain present, perceptive, and responsive in this liminal time.

In Under the Sun, the works of Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Agnieszka Polska, Līga Spunde, and Agate Tūna form an entangled universe. Polska’s video The New Sun casts its presence across the exhibition.Its childlike celestial narrator drifting between melancholy and absurdity as it addresses Earth through surreal monologues, love poems, and prophetic warnings. The sun speaks from above, simultaneously witness and participant, offering a poetic lens on crisis, responsibility, and the fragile cycles of life on Earth. Around this work, Giraudet and Tūna each developed new work that extend their ongoing artistic inquiries while responding to the context of TUR and the themes of the exhibition. Giraudet’s installation centres on two monumental truck forms, both sculptural objects and conceptual vehicles. They anchor an allegorical inquiry into movement, extraction, and exchange, forming a framework of objects and references that evoke the systems through which not only goods, but also values and beliefs, are transported across landscapes. Giraudet’s work reflects on how agricultural cycles shape our relationships to labour, nourishment, and survival, offering a layered perspective on the infrastructures that sustain, and strain, contemporary life.

Tūna’s works hover between recognition and speculation, reflecting on how meaning is projected onto the unknown. Abstract fragments of an original image, which she calls “creative parasites,” are fused together and act like visual glitches or digital debris. As their origins dissolve, they become entities in their own right, neither fully legible nor entirely unfamiliar. In these works, Tūna draws on a visual language of satellites, drones, and elusive aerial objects, as if low-resolution images of the sky invite us to guess at what we’re looking at. Amid the exhibition’s planetary and digital trajectories, Spunde’s work draws us back toward the body and what it means to be human. Her work emerges from a world marked by social fragmentation and psychological fatigue, proposing a space to contemplate human virtues such as empathy, resilience, and inner strength from a place of hope, humor and optimism. Through a visual language shaped by contemporary imagery and symbolic form, she explores how emotional gestures might be practiced, rehearsed, and reclaimed. It is an invitation to consider how we embody care, attention, and integrity in uncertain times.

30.04-01.05.2025

Soloshow at gallery ASNI

Curated by Auguste Petre

The Atlanteans used crystals in unlimited quantities to produce energy, converting solar energy into electrical energy. Some of the Atlanteans who managed to escape took the crystals with them to other lands. In Egypt (their first place of refuge – translator’s note) they built pyramids, using the crystals to lift and place massive blocks of stone.*

In the exhibition “Voltentity”, Agate Tūna focuses on quartz crystal as a mediator of spiritual energy and technological environment, continuing the research of the ghost in photography initiated in her previous projects (“Techno-Spectre”). In her latest series of works, Tūna has created a visual diary of visible and invisible sensations, tracing the ability of energy, memory and identity to transform under the influence of technology. The title “Voltentity” combines the words ‘Volt’ (voltage) and ‘entity’ (essence), reflecting the dual nature of the quartz crystal as both a conductor of spiritual energy and an integral part of the contemporary technological environment.

Honoré de Balzac believed that every picture taken in a photograph takes away part of the subject, making the camera the thief of the soul. Today, this idea takes on a new meaning as the essence of the digital world is projected into electromagnetic space in the form of shadows and data points. The ghost has evolved from a metaphor for a restless soul into an energetic entity that resonates with the language of technology – electromagnetic waves, data streams, electronic voice phenomena (EVP), artificial intelligence algorithms and other contemporary media. The quartz crystal becomes a symbolic bridge to such a transformation – its piezoelectric properties have made it today an indispensable element in military radios, computer chips and mobile phones.

For Agate Tūna, process is essential, a curious dialogue with materiality and observations of its changes – perhaps this is why she has chosen analogue photography as her main means of expression. Using mirrors, glass, copper wire and scanning, Agate subjects her primary material (raw film) to various multimedia manipulations and interprets the photographic image into plexiglass objects and chemigrams. In addition, spatial extensions of photography enter the gallery as an autonomous affirmation. Furniture, wallpaper, electricity and corporeal symbols captured in pictures of the body are analogous entities that reflect and challenge the digital. At the same time, it is a play with the home as a conceptual place of domesticity and creation, an allegorical electromagnetic field that affects the human (artist’s) body, mind and spirit in everyday life. In this sense, Tūna challenges the female aspects of technology and affirms her belonging to the field of spiritual feminist methodology – the replacement of rational and materialistic patriarchal beliefs with emotional and intuitive knowledge. Spiritual feminism focuses on intuition, energy, nature, mysticism and alternative knowledge systems (dreams, rituals, spiritual practices) as sources of collective transformation, and Agate Tūna’s “Voltentity” ideally embodies its essence, declaring the bodily, cosmic and magical as the central perspective. The grammar developed within the exhibition thus unintentionally and cyclically suggests the crystalline and technological concepts used (entity, technology, mother-plate, memory, nest, etc.) as entities in the female gender.

Agate Tūna & Auguste Petre

*Atlantīda, from the newspaper Rīgas Balss, Nr.170 (21.09.1990).

Exhibition documentation by

02.11.2024 – 12.01.2025

Curator: Nastja Svarevska.

Participating Artists: Ella Jolande, Sofija Lundari, MARIA, Nataša Viosna Mūdija, Hanna Morgana, Džūna O’Nīla, Luiss Rizo Naudi, Sabīne Šnē and Agate Tūna.

The exhibition features nine artists exploring relationships between the body, earth, and the living world in their video works. The visual stories created by the artists encourage viewers to consider the body as a flowing and evolving part of an ecosystem, constantly interacting with its environment. “Grains of Sand and Screens” examines the points of contact between the ancient and the digital, tracing the path from natural elements like sand, silicon’s raw material, to the screens that dominate our digital landscape. This exhibition invites viewers to reflect on material transformations, from earth to glass, from crystal to technology. Through chemigrams, video installations, and sculptural elements, the works reveal a dialogue between geological time and digital immediacy, offering insight into the intimate connection between the natural and synthetic worlds.

08.6.2024 – 28.7.2024

Kim? Contemporary art centre / Hanzas 22, Riga, LV

Participating artists: Jānis Dzirnieks (LV), Santa France (LV), Kaspars Groševs (LV), Sky Hopinka (USA), Laura Kaminskaitė (LT), Sanya Kantarovsky (USA), Nikita Kadan (UA), Viktors Timofejevs (USA/LV), Tīrkultūra group (Rolands Pēterkops, Emīls Jansons, habibah akila jamila, Reinis Semēvics, Michael Holland, LV), Agate Tūna (LV), Evita Vasiļjeva (LV/FR), Jonas Wendelin (DE) and Evita Manji (GR), Young Boy Dancing Group (YBDG).

Festival curators: Evita Goze, Žanete Liekīte, Zane Onckule

Non-Place Perspectives is a photographic series exploring how memory reshapes space, blending analog photography with digital manipulation to reflect themes of loss, transformation, and imagination. Drawing from personal experiences, particularly the artist’s grandmother’s struggle with dementia and the emotional detachment from a once familiar family home, the work investigates how memory reconstructs space over time. Using a blend of analog photography and digital manipulation, the artist constructs ethereal environments that reflect both personal history and universal themes of impermanence. The artist integrates personal elements such as fragments from a grandmother’s woven blankets and scans of the artist’s sister’s hair into the work, offering tactile textures that weave together both physical and emotional landscapes. Printed on velvet, these materials evoke a feeling of nostalgic touch, reconstructing an imagined place that lives only in the mind, fusing the real with the otherworldly.

17.05 – 27.06.2024

ISSP Gallery as part of the Riga Photography Biennial, Riga, LV

Curator – Liāna Ivete Žilde

“Often, persons who attributed supernatural abilities to themselves – mediums – took part in spiritualist séances. They even achieved the apparition of spirits in the form of beautiful women, could photograph them, talk to them, even hug them… Scientific examination of this phenomenon has always proved that the most shameless fraud of superstitious people took place.”*

Agate Tūna follows the threads of spiritualism and illusionism photography in Latvia, continuing to challenge the boundaries of conventional photography and the relationship with reality. Already in the middle of the 19th century, the then new medium of photography became a natural ally not only for memento mori practices, but also in the mode of summoning spirits. Mysterious props and tricks – such as the materialization of spirits in the form of ectoplasm and table dancing – were used to reveal evidence of the unseen world. There are rumors that Voldemārs Priede and Mārtiņs Buclers, photographers from the time of the Latvian Free State, documented seances with the famous clairvoyant and photographer Eiženas Finks, however, the images themselves have not been found so far. Maybe no one was looking for them? Looking at photographs only from the point of view of art history effectively excludes the field of other uses – from science and journalism to the occult. The history of images in many areas is so far unwritten and unexplored, while the evidence settles in the collections of local memory institutions.

In the works made in analog technique, Tūna’s own body becomes a tool of personal and artistic exploration – she is a photographer, model and medium of images, and takes control of the process in her own hands. Unconscious “mistakes” and technical techniques stimulate the imagination and magical thinking, testing the limits of Túna’s own and the viewer’s belief. now, visual information wanders as digital files on the Internet, where they often lose their connection to their original past, undergo deformations, and take on yet another kind of aura.

*”Spirit Summoners” from the newspaper Padomju Ceļš (Ogre), No. 44 (08.04.1961)

09.06 – 27.08.2023

Tallinna Kunstihoone, Tallinn Art Hall City Gallery, EST

Patricipating Artists: Agate Tūna (LV), Amélie Laurence Fortin (PL/CA), Ann Mirjam Vaikla (EST), Pau/a (LV/DE), Jila Svicevic (EST/HU/SRB), Eglė Šimėnaitė (LT)

Curator: Corina L. Apostol

Photo documentation by Paul Kuimet and Hedi Jaansoo

Chasing the Devil to the Moon is an exhibition curated by Corina L. Apostol taking the form of an open call addressed to artists and creators for an artistic commission of recolouring the moon. Faced with such a not-so-improbable task, how would an artist or collective of artists go about it? Proposals that take on this commission raise questions and provide propositions and commentary that unpack some of the issues at stake when taking on such a monumental task. The moon is an image of power and, at the same time, a new frontier for power – a site of inward and outward pressures, of the struggle for autonomy and colonial control. What are the role of art and the artist in these configurations of power? Focused on a single initial hypothesis that can be deconstructed from different philosophical, practical, political and social angles, artists are invited to consider the importance of context in art and culture, as it is perceived through our and others’ speculations.
Text by Corina L. Apostol

The Unforseen Spectrum
250 x 350 cm
Chemigram photography UV print on aluminium (dibond)

Agate Tūna’s artistic project The Unforeseen Spectrum delves into the long-standing association between the Moon and human consciousness, while also raising the provocative question of what could happen if the Moon’s colour were altered. Tūna interrogates the age old belief that the full moon can provoke bizarre and dangerous behavior, including sleepwalking, suicide, violence and even lycanthropy. Though scientific studies have discredited these claims, they still persist in some communities. Tūna draws inspiration from this belief, considering how altering the Moon’s colour might impact human psychology and the environment.

To bring this vision to life, Tūna employs the experimental photographic technique of chemigrams, which utilise photosensitive paper, fixative, developer and stopper to create unpredictable and magical effects. The resulting images embody the moon’s enigmatic and mercurial nature, appearing in a range of hues, including blue, purple, pink and sepia. This technique is an apt choice for exploring the Moon’s evocative power and the potential consequences of tampering with it.

Through her project, Tūna challenges viewers to contemplate the Moon’s role as a natural guardian of Earth and how altering its appear- ance could impact this vital function. By tackling this topic through art, Tūna spotlights the political, social and environmental significance of the Moon, while also urging viewers to re-examine their beliefs and attitudes towards this iconic celestial body.

01.06-29.06.2023

MA POST (Art in Context) Graduation Show
Slokas street 18, Riga, LV

Participating artists: Marta Viktorija Agruma, Kintija Avena, Krišjānis Elviks, Madara Gruntmane-Dujana, Anna Malicka, Dzelde Mierkalne, Alise Putniņa, Agate Tūna

Photo documentation by Līga Spunde

Tehno-Spectre
Agate Tūna’s artwork Techno-Spectre challenges the familiar landscape of photography, immersing viewers in a fascinating cosmos where historical interpretations of capturing the unseen intertwine with the connection between photography, spirituality, and belief. Tūna experiments with analog techniques like film soups, double exposures, chemigrams, and photograms to explore the evolution of this relationship by confronting the spectral presence of technology in our lives and the dance between magic and innovation.

In a world where technology incessantly reveals the mechanics behind natural phenomena, it paradoxi- cally becomes a conduit for capturing magic and venturing into uncharted territories. “Techno-Spectre” pres- ents anomalies, often ascribed to supernatural occurrences, that can be traced back to subtle camera deviations, blurring the line between reality and illusion. This is akin to the captivating artistry of a meticulously performed magic trick, showcasing that the potency of photography lies not just in the result but also in the enchanting journey of its creation. Drawing inspiration from the philosophical concept of hauntology, Tūna’s artwork inves- tigates the lingering presence of the past’s “ghosts,” their unresolved narratives, and unfulfilled futures, as they continue to reverberate and shape our present reality. By confronting the spectral manifestations of technology in our lives, Tūna’s art prompts viewers to reflect on the haunting forces that persistently shape our perceptions and beliefs.

Central to the artwork is the use of chemigrams, created on photosensitive paper with a photo fixer and developer. Merging photography with drawing, she manipulates photosensitive paper both chemically and physically, scratching, folding, painting and making marks to introduce another dimension of expression. Later, the images are printed on aluminium (dibond), giving the material a new layer of materiality. By bending the surface of the aluminium (dibond), the image, initially constrained within a two-dimensional frame, begins to capture a three-dimensional world. The resulting artwork captures the ebb and flow between the artist’s control and the unpredictable reactions of the chemicals, culminating in a captivating interplay between precision and chaos.

09.03.-31.03.2023

Gallery DOM, Riga, LV

Patricipating Artists: Marta Viktorija Agruma, Kintija Avena, Krišjānis Elviks, Madara Gruntmane-Dujana, Anna Malicka, Dzelde Mierkalne, Alise Putniņa and Agate Tūna. Among their works, there are also interventions by Artis Ostups and Kārlis Vērdiņš.

Curator: Artis Ostups

Exhibition’s curator Artis Ostups has chosen metonymy as the conceptual core. Metonymy in language is a transference of similarity between two concepts. In art, metonymy is revealed as a visual detail that is able to connect different contexts and therefore expands the virtual space of the work. Metonymic works also transform the gallery it becomes as vast as the visitor’s imagination. The artists in the exhibition use metonymy to create transitions between the working materials and a wider semantic field that holds both literary and personal experience.

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26/01.2023.

Lethaby gallery, London, UK

Participating artists: Kristaps Ancāns, Marta Viktorija Agruma, Kintija Avena, Natasha Brown, Madara Gruntmane, Marc Hulson, Medb Mcpherson & Donna Poingdestre, Dzelde Mierkalne, Anna Malicka, Marine One, Agate Tūna & PlasticAfterlife (Kristians Aglonietis & Patrīcija Māra Vilsone)

Curator: Mark Halson

This series of events explored overlaps between experimental art practice and specific modes of formal play within the conventions of horror fiction. From the narrative tradition of the “tale within a tale” to the “found-footage” movie, the potential for metafictional reading is constantly emerging in the history of the fantastic as a genre. Arguably the appearance of supernatural entities or events within otherwise realist narratives is in and of itself subversive of dominant representational codes. Meanwhile, the DIY ethos of low-budget horror undermines the flawless simulations of commercial spectacle, while the mutant forms of experimental cinema burrow further beneath the surface, between and behind the scenes of the image.

15.09.-30.09.2022

Soloshow @gallery DOM, Riga, LV

Agate Tūna continues the research of family relations (initiated in the series of previous works The Pond House), which is closely related to the supernatural. The artist’s grand-grandparents were healers and fortune tellers, while her great-grandfather’s brother was a black magician and his wife – a witch.
This series seeks to uncover the presence of the intangible by drawing parallels between personal family events and the broader history of spiritualism and paranormal photography and the history of spiritualism in the West. Spiritist sessions became especially popular in the Victorian era and continued to spread widely during both World Wars. Communication with departed loved ones served as the healing of the pain and a sense of comfort for those who mourned. Meanwhile in the Soviet Union these and similar practices had to remain hidden. Tūna uses analog photography as a medium a mediator between the two worlds. Through the camera, the artist enters the darkness, using photography as both an investigative tool and a ritual of courage. The work becomes a personal and artistic confrontation with the unseen, addressing inherited fears and the powerful, often hidden, role of women as mystics and healers in Latvia.

25.05-02.07.2023

Riga Photography Biennial, Gallery of the Artist’s Union of Latvia, Riga, LV

Participating artists: Hedi Jaansoo (EE), Ieva Maslinskaitė (LT), Agate Tūna (LV), Daniel Vincent Hansen (NO)

Curated by Inga Brūvere (LV) and Marie Sjøvold (NO)

The flies were passing through one ear and toads caught them through the other. As it seemed then, the wind is still in charge here.

Through the analog photo series called The Pond House Agate Tūna documents stories retold by her mother, aunts and grandmothers that allow to sense the bond between women of the family through seven generations. The Pond house is located at the meadows of Latvias countryside, Latgale. Today the house sits still as if stopped in time. At the crossroads between duty and freedom, Soviet power, religion and esotericism, fantasy and everyday hard work, here reality merges with abstract landscapes of memories. It is filled with objects and stories yet as the camera used to be an expensive purchase, there is little to no documentation of this place. While searching for the historical evidence of the generational stories, the Pond House reveals insights of its own, as well as connections between forgotten truths about the image of women and war crimes at that time, unfortunately resembling the similarities of painful events today.

04.11-23.12.2022

Apexart gallery, New York, USA

Patricipating Artists: Kristaps Ancāns, Tamika Galanis, Scherezade García, Joiri Minaya Virginia Wagner and artistic collaborators Anna Malicka and Agate Tūna.

Curated by Corina Apostol, Tashima Thomas

Flora Fantastic explores botanical imaginaries where both poisons and panaceas abide within the same natural specimen while moving through spatial and temporal environmental frameworks. Such contradictions common in florae have given rise to the word, ‘pharmacology’ which is derived from the Greek, ‘pharmakon,’ meaning both remedy and poison. Nestled among the thickets, bouquets, and vines of Flora Fantastic is the work of artists addressing coloniality in art making today, both in concept and in practice, cultivating a dialectical relationship with plants rooted in historical legacies and contested landscapes. Artists are engaging with the botanical phenomenon of certain plants whose physical exposure through contact or ingestion in sufficient quantities may prove harmful or even fatal. However, when applied in appropriate amounts and proportions, the same plants may become remedies as herbal salves or botanical balms replete with medicinal properties.