The Inmost Cell,
Mono-channel Video,10min30,
Sound by John Also Bennett, dialogues with Eva Mancuso, voice by Iveta Pole
The Inmost Cell takes its starting point from the ruins of three underwater islands flooded at the creation of the Riga dam. The openning scene is inspired by the calenture, a marine mirages where the sea becomes an inviting grassy field. In a fusion of the rural and the maritime landscape, Latvian mythological figures seem to emerge from the guts of a machine.Through the combination of various digital processes, Eva L’Hoest turns her photographic reportage of the outskirts of Riga into three-dimensional fluid architectures. These lost elements of Latvian culture mark a site of synthesis between humans, nature and man-made ruins.The text echoes the format of Dainas, traditional short poems depicting human bonds with nature, and frames the underworld. As the figures progress in the liquid realm, its monochrome gives way to color. Across slow, contemplative tracking movements, its different realities merge as forms fall one after the other, and passageways are created between places and memory.
Text by Claire Contamine
The Inmost Cell at Botanique, Brussels, Belgium, 2021
The Inmost Cell at Riga Biennale, RIBOCA2, Riga, Latvia, 2020
