A Journey to Marsi

From 22 October to 11 November 2026, the third-floor vestibule of the main building of the Latvian National Museum of Art will host “A Journey to Marsi. An Artist Enters a Wooded Meadow”, an exhibition created jointly by the Latvian Fund for Nature and artists Kristaps Kalns and Sarmīte Māliņa. This collaborative project is dedicated to wooded meadows, one of Latvia’s rarest and most biodiverse landscapes.

Through large-scale photographs, the exhibition presents eight encounters between Latvian artists or artist groups and this distinctive landscape across the seasons, alongside the artists’ impressions and memories of their journeys. Most of the photographs were taken at Marsi in the Valka municipality, home to one of Latvia’s most remarkable and oldest wooded meadows.

“Wooded meadows are cultural landscapes that embody the capacity of people and nature to form mutually enriching relationships. They reveal a partnership in which human presence helps biodiversity flourish, while nature gives generously in return. This is why we invited people who shape Latvia’s artistic and cultural life to enter this landscape and develop their own dialogue and relationship with it. In doing so, we sought both to highlight the importance of wooded meadows and bring them to wider attention, and to contribute to the rethinking of human relationships with nature that is taking place around the world,” says Inese Ebele, Director of the Latvian Fund for Nature.

In 2025 and 2026, prominent figures in Latvia’s cultural and artistic life visited the wooded meadows of the Northern Gauja region to experience them in different seasons. Kristaps Kalns captured these encounters in photographs, in which each person, themselves part of Latvia’s cultural landscape, became part of another cultural landscape: the wooded meadow. Following their visits, the artists were invited to share their impressions through their preferred form of artistic expression. The exhibition therefore complements the large-scale photographs with sketches and other creative responses by the people portrayed.

The participants were artists Ieva Iltnere and Jānis Mitrēvics, the artist duo Skuja Braden, sculptor Aigars Bikše, poet Jānis Rokpelnis, composer Krists Auznieks and artist Krista Vindberga-Auzniece, artist Andris Eglītis, actor Vilis Daudziņš, and the band Alejas.

Sarmīte Māliņa, co-creator of the exhibition: “A journey to Marsi: majestic trees, the smell of cows and pastures, a living orchestra of nature’s sensations. We could feel like children poring over the illustrations in a book. Every one of the wonderful artists who visited the meadow affirmed how deeply Latvians belong to nature.”

Kristaps Kalns, co-creator of the exhibition: “I am the fortunate matchmaker who has brought people and the meadow together, happily watching their encounter. And showing it to others.”

Wooded meadows are habitats where large, old trees grow scattered across a mosaic of open grassland. They developed over centuries through traditional land management practices, including haymaking and livestock grazing. Through the interaction of people and nature, they became one of the most species-rich ecosystems in our region. They support wildlife from two different ecosystems, woodland and meadow, as well as distinctive communities of species associated with widely spaced, sunlit trees. As land management practices have changed, wooded meadows have almost disappeared. Today, they cover just 1,400 hectares in Latvia.

The Latvian Fund for Nature thanks all the artists who agreed to take part and embark on a journey to Marsi!

The exhibition was created as part of the WoodMeadowLIFE project implemented by the Latvian Fund for Nature, with financial support from the EU LIFE Programme.