This year’s RIXC Art Science Festival, taking place from October 22–23, 2026, at the National Library of Latvia in Riga, explores CLIMATE IMAGINATION as a cultural and scientific field where art, technology, and environmental research intersect, featuring a symposium, exhibitions, European Media Art Platform (EMAP) workshops, and other events. As climate change reshapes ecosystems, infrastructures, and everyday life, the festival aims to bring together artists, researchers, and practitioners to explore imagination as a critical capacity for sensing and rethinking our relationships with the Earth. The festival’s central event is the exhibition: CLIMATE IMAGINATION, featuring artworks by more than 10 international artists, which will be on view at the National Library of Latvia from October 22 to December 12, 2026.
The festival’s exhibitions, symposium, and workshops aim to create multisensory encounters with environmental change, exploring how artistic practices – from immersive media and XR to data visualisation and environmental sensing – can expand how climate processes are perceived and imagined.
The festival will host a Baltic STS workshop-meeting, bringing together researchers from the Baltic–Nordic region to discuss climate knowledge, environmental sensing, and socio-technical infrastructures. The program will also include an EMAP (European Media Art Platform) workshop, connecting the festival to broader European art–science collaborations.
Artists: Maija DEMITERE (LV), Patricia DOMINGUEZ (CL), Anne Duk Hee JORDAN (KR/DE), Pauline DOUTRELUINGNE (BE/DE), Ryu FURUSAWA (JP), Marcus MAEDER (CH), kennedy+swan (DE), knowbotiq in collaboration with Pablo Torres (CH/AT/CO), Jurģis PETERS (LV), Mārtiņš RATNIKS (LV), Rasa SMITE (LV/CH), Raitis SMITS (LV), Benedikt TERWIEL (DE) in collaboration with ANOHNI (US).
Curator: Raitis SMITS (LV)
Guides are available in English and Latvian. To book group tours, email rixc@rixc.org
Thursday, October 22
Artistic Experimentation / Climate Imagination
10:00 Press Conference & Exhibition Preview
13:00 Symposium Session 1: Baltic ArtSTS: Artistic Experimentation Workshop
16:00 Keynote: Philippe Sormani
18:00 Official Festival & Exhibition Opening: Climate Imagination, National Library of Latvia
Friday, October 23
Sustainable Productions / Extending Climate Realities
12:00 Symposium Session 2: EMAP: Sustainable Art Productions + exhibition artist presentations
14:30 Symposium Session 3: SensUs: Extending Climate Realities – from fieldwork and ecological research to immersive/XR artistic experimentation
18:00 Prompted Evolution exhibition opening, RIXC Gallery
Register for:
- Full Festival Pass
- Day Tickets
- Session / Keynote Tickets
CONTACTS
+371 67228478 (office)
+371 26546776 (Rasa Smite)
+371 25358541 (Līva Siliņa)