Pen Pal
CHEAP OR PRICELESS? Words and Images Ksenija Onufrijeva
Empty window holes watching greedily as you pass by. Paint on the façade, once bright and smooth, now burnt-out, embroidered with countless cracks. We all know those, and we wonder what secrets they are keeping behind the dusty doorknobs — the abandoned. The legacy of the second part of the 20th century that brought countless factories, warehouses, once-bustling industrial areas into silent pieces of oblivion. And so they stay. Empty.
Once I grew up, I realised, how many of these abandoned are all around our city. Riga used to be an important centre of production of all kinds of wares that would be massively exported, with whole neighbourhoods built around clusters of factories. Now, after a rapid de-industrialisation that took place in the 90s, all of these places, which currently officially account 11911, are mostly underused and deteriorating. And there probably are more. Not only in my country. 20
There is always an intrigue in the forbidden, hidden and closed. There is always a mystery in the untouched, forgotten and old. Such places attract, hypnotise, impress. They raise curiosity. They expand the regular borders of the city, offering new viewpoints and letting us think of alternative perspectives. In 2013, a group of enthusiasts established the bottom-up initiative Free Rīga to shout out for a change and let a new breath into the abandoned buildings around the capital. Free Rīga collaborates with other international projects such as Refill and URBACT2 that aim to detect and acknowledge the potential of the vacant urban sites and encourage their redevelopment all around Europe. The main strategy for doing this is temporary uses of abandoned sites, which are often offered for a very low or even no price to the young entrepreneurs, creative start-ups, and artists. Thus, becoming a priceless chance for both youngsters to develop themselves and the abandoned sites to get redeveloped. Recently, such temporary events were actively organised in the former industrial areas of Rīga, introducing unexpected way of using the old factories and port storage houses - as exhibition centres for contemporary art. The vast open spaces of the industrial structures perfectly accommodate various types of artworks – from tiny paintings to impressive
Exhibition Točka, Sarkandaugava, Rīga, 2020. Photo by Ksenija Onufrijeva.
