Beside the Karva hydropower station, where the Vaidava river flows, lies a place where the owners imagine an artist residency. Before the new visions take shape, we visited the site with the The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) Summer School 2025 participants to look beyond human-built structures, attune to seasonal rhythms, and take time to listen, map, and reflect.

This workshop offers a counter-practice to dominant, extractive ways of knowing a place—foregrounding the non-linear time, seasonality, and cyclical rhythms embodied in the Vaidava river and its surroundings. Guided by a Fabula-created worksheet, participants engaged in relational mapping, choosing more-than-human companions: wooden stubs, algae, beavers, and water. By mapping these often-overlooked dynamics, we resist the flattening logic of industrial time and reclaim space for relational, multispecies ways of sensing and learning.

Big thanks to the Summer school organiser Andra Ailapetere, and the hosts Andris Gauja and Elīza Gauja.

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