Contemporary art spaces TUR and 1646 (The Hague) announce the opening of the collaborative group exhibition 'Under the Sun'

Contemporary art spaces TUR and 1646 (The Hague) announce the opening of the collaborative group exhibition “Under the Sun” on October 29th at 18:00 with work by Eric Giraudet de Boudemange (FR/NL), Agnieszka Polska (PL), Līga Spunde (LV), and Agate Tūna (LV).

Opening on October 29th and running till November 29th at TUR in Riga, Under the Sun is a group exhibition developed in collaboration with 1646, a contemporary art space based in The Hague, The Netherlands. Featuring work by Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Agnieszka Polska, Līga Spunde, and Agate Tūna, the exhibition launches a newly established annual format at TUR, one rooted in cross-border dialogue, shared inquiry, and the evolving role of art institutions in shaping cultural conversations across Europe. The exhibition brings together four distinct artistic approaches that respond to the urgencies of the present from planetary, psychological, and speculative perspectives. Set within TUR’s post-industrial exhibition space, Under the Sun offers a resonant and layered encounter with the conditions that shape life, and art.

Conceived as the inaugural edition of this new format, Under the Sun reflects a collaboration between TUR and 1646 that is grounded in experimentation, close engagement with artists, and an attentiveness to how exhibition spaces shape artistic meaning. More broadly, the project invites deeper engagement with Latvia’s contemporary art scene through the visibility of its artists and by highlighting the institutional practices, perspectives, and contexts that sustain them. At its heart is an ambition to exchange with other vibrant cultural scenes across Europe, each shaped by distinct geographic, historical, and artistic conditions. This spirit of exchange runs through TUR’s wider programming: from international residencies to participation in foreign art fairs, these initiatives build small but meaningful bridges across borders. Under the Sun extends this trajectory, contributing to a larger conversation about cultural presence, mutual recognition, and the layered complexity of European belonging. A reminder that we are all living, creating, and enduring under the same sun.

Curated by 1646 directors Johan Gustavsson (SE/NL), Clara Pallí Monguilod (ES/NL) and TUR’s artistic director Edd Schouten (NL/LV) Under the Sun brings together the work of four artists that approach the present moment from distinct but interconnected vantage points: from outer space, from within the psyche, and from both earthly and spiritual perspectives. In an age shaped by environmental collapse, political instability, and mounting existential uncertainty, the exhibition considers what it means to be a witness to unfolding events and remain attuned to the impulses, responsibilities, and refusals that shape our response. Each artist offers a poetic response to the crises we inhabit, inviting viewers to move across planetary, psychological, embodied, and metaphysical dimensions. 

Through the works of Agnieszka Polska, Eric Giraudet de Boudemange, Līga Spunde, and Agate Tūna, Under the Sun reflects on the entanglements between witnessing and responsibility. Whether through the melancholic monologues of a sentient sun, the allegorical reconstruction of agricultural systems, the sculptural rehearsal of human virtues, or the spectral traces of digital image-making, the exhibition opens a shared horizon of deeper attentiveness and creates a space for sensing, resisting, and imagining otherwise.

For Under the Sun, Agnieszka Polska presents The New Sun (2017), a video work in which the central protagonist, a sentient, childlike sun, addresses Earth through surreal monologues, love poems, and prophetic warnings. Simultaneously absurd and unsettling, the sun acts as both witness and participant in Earth’s fate, critiquing human inaction with a mix of naïveté and melancholic urgency. The work’s slow pacing and hypnotic visuals generate a trance-like experience, transforming ecological and existential unease into a poetic encounter with crisis.

Līga Spunde contributes Power Pose, a 3D printed sculptural work first shown in her solo exhibition Field of Exercises at TUR,  alongside a newly adapted two-dimensional floor piece derived from the original installation. Her works investigate bodily gestures as vehicles for psychological recovery and emotional resilience. By monumentalizing gestures such as confidence or empathy, she proposes a kind of visual training ground: a space for rehearsing presence and practicing human virtues amid societal fragmentation.

Eric Giraudet de Boudemange presents new work that has been partially developed during his artist residency at TUR. At its center are two monumental truck forms, constructed structures clad in printed vinyl,  which function as both sculptural object and conceptual vehicle. These trucks become metaphors for systems of movement, extraction, and exchange: the infrastructures that transport not only goods, but beliefs and values across landscapes. Around and within them, Giraudet inserts elements developed in Riga, expanding his inquiry into how agricultural cycles, from cultivation to distribution, reflect and shape our relationships to labour, nourishment, and survival. His work offers a grounded yet allegorical vision of Earth as a site of logistical entanglement and metaphysical reckoning.

Agate Tūna contributes a new series of two-dimensional sculptural works that emerge from the iterative deconstruction of a single photographic image. These abstract forms, which she describes as “creative parasites,” recall digital debris such as satellites, drones, or unidentified aerial objects, and raise questions about legibility, authorship, and the fate of images in the age of infinite reproduction. Her work invites reflection on perception and projection: what we see, what we believe we see, and what remains perpetually out of reach. Tūna’s practice blends speculative fiction with material precision, asking how visual remnants, like ghosts, outlive their contexts and become strange new entities of their own.

About TUR

TUR is a contemporary art space in Riga shaped by an exchange between artists, curators, and the space itself. Located in a large, cube-shaped area within a post-industrial building, TUR’s exhibitions are not imposed upon the space but emerge from a dialogue with its raw materiality, its scale, light, textures, and evolving conditions. Rather than treating the space as a neutral container, TUR invites artists to engage with it as a collaborator, highlighting a practice of attentiveness and reciprocity.

This approach reflects a broader ethical stance: a rejection of the impulse to dominate or neutralize one’s surroundings which is an impulse long embedded in human attitudes toward land, architecture, and ecology. In contrast, TUR’s curatorial model cultivates sensitivity to context, memory, and form. It proposes that to work with a space is also to listen to it, to acknowledge its histories and its material voice. In this way, TUR’s practice aligns with anti-colonial thinking, a practice of care, refusal, and reorientation.

TUR’s annual program follows a seasonal rhythm: three solo exhibitions in winter, three in summer, and a collaborative group exhibition with a partner European art space from outside of Latvia each autumn. This cycle mirrors the changing atmosphere of the space: introspective and stark in winter; open and expansive in summer; and a Fall exhibition that offers a moment for reflection and international exchange. TUR emphasizes long-term collaboration with artists, from early conceptual stages to final presentation and public engagement. The program incorporates interdisciplinary formats such as artist talk-concerts and other events that open new modes of encounter and understanding.

Since 2024, TUR has deepened its commitment to international dialogue. An artist-in-residence program invites artists to spend time in Riga to research and develop new work and in conversation with TUR and the wider artistic community. TUR also seeks to promote Latvian artists and the thriving Riga art scene by participating in at least one international art fair each year. These outward-facing initiatives form part of a broader strategy to strengthen cultural ties, expand artistic networks, and affirm Latvia’s dynamic presence within the European art landscape.

About 1646

1646 is an art space in the heart of The Hague. With its experimental, international public program, 1646 wants to contribute to an increasingly complex society by challenging existing systems and traditional views, to reflect on the questions that live among us all.

The exhibition program at 1646 shows innovative artistic practices, inviting local and international artists to make new work. With a focus on solo-projects, 1646 offers an in-depth perspective of the artist’s practice via a public program containing a generous overview of exhibitions, artist talks, events, publications, dialogues, podcasts and a residency program. 1646 is a non-profit foundation dedicated to creating the space and providing the means for artistic practices to thrive.

The ambitious program presents artists that use strategies such as fictioning, complicating and humour in their work in order to generate dialogue or to propose alternative points of view. Their notion is that fiction is an essential instrument to help imagine the world differently. In the same light, embracing and celebrating complexity, contradiction and paradox – as inherent qualities of human existence – are essential to weigh up against the predominance of rationality and logic. Finally, using playfulness and humour as tools is needed to maintain an open attitude.

1646 has an international focus and values the circulation of perspectives. For this reason, a Residency Program is set up as a retreat to nourish work and ideas. The residency is not focused on an end result, but on providing a space for research/work/reflection, while getting familiar with the context of The Hague and The Netherlands.