Living Memory
A multisensory experience for one person.
This research-based performative experience asks questions about the memory of a place and about memory's place in culture, as well as individually in each of us. What does it mean to remember that, which has been submerged in the past? How important is physical pace in the preservation of a memory? Can our memories, like plant species, disappear altogether if they lose their habitat?
Like it did happen to alpine butterwort (Pinguicula alpina), a rare carnivorous plant that lived on the northern side of Staburags cliff in Latvia since the last ice age (some 14,000–12,000 years ago). It was this plant’s only natural growth. After the cliff was flooded due to the construction of the Hydroelectric Power Plant in 1965 there were attempts to transplant the alpine butterwort to Raunas Staburags but since 2008 this plant, which lived in Latvia all these years, went extinct.
This also means that the genetic information and the memory of this plant, that was acquired through the experience living within these climatic circumstances, through interaction with other species and the freshwater limestone that came from the Staburags cliff is also gone with it. There are also now only a few people living, bearing the memory of Staburag’s cliff.
Remembering is a creative process that involves our imagination. Sometimes it means diving into dark waters where almost nothing is visible. The brain network that is responsible for remembering is also responsible for the imagination. The way we look to the past largely determines our future trajectory.
Currently, the alpine butterwort in Latvia grows only in special laboratory conditions. The alpine butterwort of Latvian origin has disappeared completely. The alpine butterwort currently grown in the National Botanical Garden comes from seeds harvested in Estonia.
Part of cycle of events “Ecosystem of Change” Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, curated by Ieva Astahovska
Scientist Dace Kļaviņa, National Botanical Garden, Latvia
Soundscape by Maksims Šenteļevs
Performer Mingaile Kola
Thanks to Daiga Jamonte and Museum of Botany, University of Latvia for lending the last herbarium of alpine butterwort collected at the Staburags cliff by Gaida Ābele.
Photos: Didzis Grodzs