In the framework of Today Is Our Tomorrow, The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art presents Oestrus Youth by Anni Puolakka and Marta Trektere. The performance exploring collaboration, trust and hybridity as meaningful tools to cope with the human condition takes place through Instagram stories on Thursday 1st of April at 6pm (EEST).

Puolakka and Trektere have been working jointly since 2018 supplementing, interacting, supporting and curating each other’s work. Their relationship explores different forms of interaction, character bending and shape shifting reacting to norms and tensions in our contemporary world. They share interest in topics like sex, kinship, roleplay, fiction, images and music, identifying these as experiences that can offer more fluid approaches not only to artmaking, but life overall.

Oestrus Youth is a mash-up of two performances – Oestrus and Painless Youth – in which both artists are involved in each other’s work as a visiting performer and a supporter. Oestrus is an evolving project by Anni Puolakka which tells a story about love involving physical distance and fantasies of transforming into those whom you love. The performance includes music made by ITU, a band Puolakka has with Miša Skalskis. Painless Youth is a performance by Marta Trektere with accompanying music by Kaspars Groševs. Oestrus Youth features costumes made in collaboration with designer Karolina Janulevičiūtė.

Anni Puolakka is based in Helsinki and makes performances, videos, installations, drawings and texts in which documentary materials are incorporated into surreal worlds. The works play with the boundaries and the potential of human animals as they seek meaningful and vibrant involvement with other beings, objects and surroundings. The works involve experimentation with theatrical and cinematic traditions, as well as with contemporary methods. Puolakka’s works have recently been shown at EMMA Museum of Modern Art (Espoo, Finland), Polansky Gallery (Prague, Czech Republic), Finnish National Theater (Helsinki, Finland), CAC Vilnius (Vilnius, Lithuania), SIC (Helsinki, Finland) and 427 Gallery (Riga, Latvia).

Marta Trektere is a performance artist, writer and an independent curator based in Riga, Latvia. She is currently running 427 Gallery, an artist-run space in Riga. Trektere’s works address the simplicity of complexity in everyday life, as well as psychological difficulties in life, art and texts, working with various media like performance art, text, video, sound. Trektere’s recent shows include “Memory” at 427 Gallery (Riga, Latvia, 2020), “Commission” at Ziloņu Zāle (Riga, Latvia, 2020), “Forest of the Doppelgängers” at Catbox Contemporary (New York, USA, 2019), “Dying Death” at Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) (Vilnius, Lithuania, 2019), “Painless Youth” at Editorial (Vilnius, Lithuania, 2019), “Posh Spaz” at kim? Contemporary Art Centre (Riga, Latvia, 2019), ”I Had Amnesia Once or Twice” at Polansky Gallery (Prague, Czech Republic, 2019) among others.

The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) is the largest institution of contemporary art in Latvia that curates and produces contemporary art events of national and international scale. As of 1993, it has researched and curated contemporary art processes both in Latvia and abroad to provoke critical reflection on issues topical for contemporary society. They are widely recognized for their annual international contemporary art festival SURVIVAL KIT, regular exhibitions at the Latvian National Museum of Art, as well as Latvia’s representation at the Venice Biennale, Manifesta, São Paulo Art Biennial, Kochi-Muziris Biennale and Rauma Biennale of Contemporary Art.

Oestrus Youth is co-commissioned for Today Is Our Tomorrow. The festival, taking a different form and location each year, supports intersectional ecologies and diversity of thoughts, of practices, of identities, and their experiences through its collaborative methodology. The 2021 edition has been realised in collaboration with The Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art, Narva Art Residency and NAC of Vilnius Academy of Arts.