REGISTRATION IS OPEN! | RIXC Art Science Festival 2026 — Climate Imagination | Riga & Online
RIXC ART SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2026
CLIMATE IMAGINATION
22–23 OCTOBER 2026
National Library of Latvia, Riga / RIXC Gallery
Onsite: 22–23 October | Online: 23 October
SYMPOSIUM · PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOPS · KEYNOTE · EXHIBITIONS
The RIXC Art Science Festival CLIMATE IMAGINATION takes place on 22–23 October 2026 at the National Library of Latvia and RIXC Gallery in Riga. This year’s festival explores climate imagination as a cultural and scientific field where art, technology, and environmental research intersect.
Bringing together artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners, the festival explores imagination as a critical capacity for sensing and rethinking our relationships with the Earth at a time when climate change is reshaping ecosystems, infrastructures, and everyday life.
The programme includes an opening keynote, two exhibitions, and a participatory symposium with three thematic sessions combining artist presentations, experimental practices, workshops, showcases, and collective discussions.
PARTICIPATION IS FREE — REGISTER NOW!
Onsite: Join both festival days, including the symposium, keynote, and exhibition openings.
Online: Join Friday’s W2 and W3 workshops via Zoom. Register through Eventbrite to receive access information (Zoom link).
REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE: https://ej.uz/rixcfestival2026tickets
We warmly invite you to join us on 22–23 October 2026, onsite at the National Library of Latvia in Riga, or online on the second day.
Bringing together international artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners, this year’s festival features artistic experimentation, participatory workshops, discussions, a keynote, and two exhibitions exploring how art and science can expand our climate imagination.
All three symposium sessions W1, W2, W3 are participatory! Alongside invited artists and researchers, open-call contributors will share their practices, while all participants are invited to join collaborative workshop discussions.
THURSDAY, 22 OCTOBER — ONSITE ONLY
13:00–15:30 | W1 — On Artistic Experimentation (onsite only)
Workshop with Philippe Sormani
16:00 | Opening Keynote — Rewilding the Lab (onsite only)
Philippe Sormani, respondent Ainārs Kamoliņš
18:00 | Exhibition opening — Climate Imagination (onsite only)
FRIDAY, 23 OCTOBER — ONSITE + ONLINE
12:00–14:00 | W2 — On Sustainable Digital Productions (onsite/online)
EMAP workshop with Maija Demitere
14:30–16:30 | W3 — On Extending Climate Realities (onsite/online)
SensUs workshop with Rasa Smite and Jane Tingley
16:30 | Outlook — Extending Realities: Liepāja 2027 / Baltic Art STS (onsite/online)
18:00 | Exhibition opening — Prompted Evolution (onsite only)
PARTICIPATION IS FREE — REGISTER NOW!
Onsite: Join both festival days, including the symposium, keynote, and exhibition openings.
Online: Join Friday’s W2 and W3 workshops via Zoom. Register through Eventbrite to receive access information (Zoom link).
REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE: https://ej.uz/rixcfestival2026tickets
EXPLORE THE FESTIVAL WEBSITE!
Discover the full programme, participating artists, workshops, exhibitions, and more:
https://festival2026.rixc.org/
We look forward to welcoming you in Riga or online!
Best wishes,
RIXC Team
RIXC ART SCIENCE FESTIVAL 2026
CLIMATE IMAGINATION
22–23 OCTOBER 2026
National Library of Latvia, Riga / RIXC Gallery
Onsite: 22–23 October | Online: 23 October
SYMPOSIUM · PARTICIPATORY WORKSHOPS · KEYNOTE · EXHIBITIONS
The RIXC Art Science Festival CLIMATE IMAGINATION takes place on 22–23 October 2026 at the National Library of Latvia and RIXC Gallery in Riga. This year’s festival explores climate imagination as a cultural and scientific field where art, technology, and environmental research intersect.
Bringing together artists, researchers, and cultural practitioners, the festival explores imagination as a critical capacity for sensing and rethinking our relationships with the Earth at a time when climate change is reshaping ecosystems, infrastructures, and everyday life.
The programme includes an opening keynote, two exhibitions, and a participatory symposium with three thematic sessions combining artist presentations, experimental practices, workshops, showcases, and collective discussions.
OPENING KEYNOTE
Rewilding the Lab: Instructive Evidence from Post-normal Practice
Thursday, 22 October 2026 | 16:00
National Library of Latvia, Conference Center, Level -1
ONSITE ONLY
Philippe Sormani, Senior Researcher at the STS Lab at the University of Lausanne and the Immersive Arts Space at Zurich University of the Arts, will deliver the festival’s opening keynote. His research addresses experimentation across scientific and artistic fields, from experimental physics to artistic practices, artificial intelligence, and extended reality. In his keynote, Sormani revisits experiments and the circumstances shaping their results, exploring alternative aesthetics of experimentation and sociotechnical arrangements.
The keynote respondent, Ainārs Kamoliņš, is a philosopher, curator, and doctoral researcher at the Latvian Academy of Culture whose work connects philosophy, natural sciences, biotechnology, and media art. Together, they will discuss scientific experimentation as an ecologically embedded, environmentally consequential, and situated practice, raising questions about expertise in times of multiple crises.
SYMPOSIUM — THREE PARTICIPATORY SESSIONS
The symposium brings together artists, researchers, and practitioners from Latvia, the Baltic–Nordic region, and international networks. It includes a Baltic Art STS workshop, an EMAP (European Media Art Platform) workshop, and a SensUs session dedicated to extended climate realities. All three sessions invite active participation. Alongside invited presentations and contributions selected through the festival’s open call, participants will have opportunities to exchange perspectives, join collective discussions, and explore shared questions through workshop activities.
DAY 1 — THURSDAY, 22 OCTOBER
ONSITE ONLY
W1 — ON ARTISTIC EXPERIMENTATION (onsite only)
Participatory session and workshop with Philippe Sormani
13:00–15:30 | National Library of Latvia, Conference Center, Level -1
The first session explores experimentation as an artistic and scientific practice, introducing Genealogies of Experimentation and asking: Where is the experiment in your artistic practice?
Drawing on experimental systems and situated practices, the workshop invites artists and researchers to reflect on the experimental dimensions of their work. Invited artists, international participants, and contributors from Latvia and the Baltic region will share their artistic processes, experiments, materials, and methods through short presentations and interventions. The session will continue with collective discussion and participatory workshop activities, facilitated by Philippe Sormani, Ainārs Kamoliņš, and Rasa Smite, exploring the relationships between artistic experimentation, scientific knowledge, and climate imagination. The workshop also aims to contribute to the development of Art STS (Science and Technology Studies) in Latvia and the Baltic region.
Contributors: Marcus Maeder, Pauline Doutreluingne, Christian Huebler (knowbotiq), Laura Feldberga, Jurģis Peters, Laura Beloff, open-call participants, and onsite workshop participants.
DAY 2 — FRIDAY, 23 OCTOBER
ONSITE + ONLINE
W2 — ON SUSTAINABLE DIGITAL PRODUCTIONS (onsite + online)
EMAP Participatory Workshop with Maija Demitere
Respondent: Régine Debatty
12:00–14:00 EEST | National Library of Latvia, Level 11 / Online
How can digital and media art production become more sustainable — environmentally, socially, and artistically? This session, organized within the European Media Art Platform (EMAP), explores sustainability through artistic case studies, practical experimentation, and collective discussion. Artist and researcher Maija Demitere will introduce approaches drawn from her research into deep sustainability and slow media art, connecting ecological everyday life, resource use, and artistic production.
Exhibiting festival artists will share their approaches to sustainable practices, materials, technologies, and production processes. The session will continue with a participatory workshop, inviting both onsite and online participants to contribute ideas and discuss possible strategies for more sustainable media art.
Contributors: Agnieszka Pokrywka (Aga Pokrywka), Benedikt Terwiel, Ryu Furusawa, open-call contributors and onsite/online participants.
W3 — ON EXTENDING CLIMATE REALITIES (onsite + online)
SensUs Participatory Session with Rasa Smite and Jane Tingley
14:30–16:30 EEST | National Library of Latvia, Level 11 / Online
How can extended reality and artistic experimentation expand the ways we sense, experience, and imagine environmental change? Led by Rasa Smite and Jane Tingley, this session explores artistic methods developed through the international SensUs network — from environmental data visualisation and extended reality to slow travel, site-specific research, and ecological imagination.
The session includes artistic presentations, SensUs XR showcases, and contributions from Canadian, Baltic–Nordic, Taiwanese, and Karlsruhe-based artists and collaborators.
Contributors selected through the open call will also have opportunities to share their work. The session invites onsite and online participants into collective discussions about the future of extended climate realities and the possibilities of collaborative artistic research.
Contributors: Onsite: Zane Zelmane, Zhino Yousefi, Hrysovalanti Maheras, Ilze Briede, Patrick Borgeat, Jānis Garančs, Ruta Gruma, Kristina Zakutauskaite / Online: Daria Mille, Sabrina Durling-Jones, Nina Czegledy, PoHao Chi, Chia-Yi Chen, Caitlin Lai, Tuan Mu / open-call contributors and onsite/online participants.
16:30 — OUTLOOK: EXTENDING REALITIES — LIEPĀJA 2027 / BALTIC ART STS
With Rasa Smite and Philippe Sormani
National Library of Latvia, Level 11
REGISTRATION FOR THE SYMPOSIUM
Registration is open. Participation is free of charge.
ONSITE — THURSDAY & FRIDAY, 22–23 OCTOBER
Join the complete symposium programme, including W1, W2, W3, the keynote, and exhibition openings.
ONLINE — FRIDAY, 23 OCTOBER ONLY
Join the participatory W2 and W3 sessions via Zoom.
All interested artists, researchers, students, and cultural practitioners are welcome. Advance registration is encouraged, especially for online participation.
REGISTER VIA EVENTBRITE: https://ej.uz/rixcfestival2026tickets
More information: https://festival2026.rixc.org/
EXHIBITIONS
Two exhibitions accompany the festival’s symposium, bringing together artistic investigations of environmental processes, ecological relationships, and emerging forms of technological and biological agency.
CLIMATE IMAGINATION
22 OCTOBER – 12 DECEMBER 2026
Opening: Thursday, 22 October, 18:00
National Library of Latvia, Exhibition Hall, Level 0
Mūkusalas iela 3, Riga
The exhibition explores climate imagination as a cultural and scientific field where art, technology, and environmental research intersect. From microscopic organisms, plant worlds and botanical science fiction to ecological symbiosis, artificial life and hybrid systems, changing landscapes and environmental memory, the artists explore imagination as a critical capacity for sensing and rethinking our relationships with the Earth at a time when climate change is reshaping planetary ecosystems, infrastructures and everyday life.
Artists: Maija Demitere (LV), Patricia Dominguez (CL), Ryu Furusawa (JP), Anne Duk Hee Jordan (KR/DE), Pauline Doutreluingne (BE/DE), kennedy+swan (DE), knowbotiq (CH/AT/DE) in collaboration with Pablo Torres (CO/DE), Marcus Maeder (CH), Jurģis Peters (LV/FI) in collaboration with Laura Beloff (FI), Mārtiņš Ratniks (LV), Rasa Smite (LV/CH), Raitis Smits (LV), Benedikt Terwiel (DE) in collaboration with ANOHNI (US).
PROMPTED EVOLUTION
Rasa Smite & Raitis Smits
23 OCTOBER – 12 DECEMBER 2026
Opening: Friday, 23 October, 18:00
RIXC Gallery, Lenču iela 2, Riga
Prompted Evolution explores possible continuations of plant evolution through the interaction of biological forms, generative artificial intelligence, environmental data, and human presence. Through three interconnected artworks developed during the research process, the exhibition imagines new forms of hybrid agency emerging from these interactions.
INFORMATION
Festival website: https://festival2026.rixc.org/
RIXC website: https://rixc.org/
Social media: @rixcriga
Venues
National Library of Latvia, Mūkusalas iela 3, Riga, Latvia
RIXC Gallery, Lenču iela 2, Riga, Latvia
Festival organization: Produced by RIXC Center for New Media Culture
Festival curators: Rasa Smite and Raitis Smits
Festival producer: Agnese Baranova — agnese@rixc.org
Festival and press coordinator: Lelde Gūtmane — rixc@rixc.org
Symposium coordinator: Daina Siliņa — daina@rixc.org
PR strategy coordinator: Līva Siliņa — rixc@rixc.org
Supporters and partners
State Culture Capital Foundation, Riga City Council, Pro Helvetia, European Union’s Creative Europe programme through EMAP Expanded, Nordic Culture Point, LG Electronics, Liepāja 2027 Foundation, Reverie, Arts Council Tokyo.
Media partners
Arterritory, We Make Money Not Art, Satori, Echo Gone Wrong.
Contact
RIXC Center for New Media Culture / RIXC Gallery
Lenču iela 2, Riga, LV-1010, Latvia
rixc@rixc.org | +371 26546776
www.rixc.org
REGISTRATION IS OPEN — PARTICIPATION IS FREE!
REGISTER HERE:
https://ej.uz/rixcfestival2026tickets
EXPLORE THE FULL FESTIVAL PROGRAMME:
Discover all sessions, participating artists, exhibitions and practical information on the festival website:
https://festival2026.rixc.org/