HISTORICAL MEMORY
with EGONS PERŠĒVICS
WORKSHOP PROGRAM
The workshop delved into the dynamics of public monuments and their evolving societal functions. It explored how shared and official interpretations of the past shaped societal cohesion, focusing on the intricate histories of post-Soviet Eastern European countries and the broader European integration process. Through a comparative lens, participants investigated how Latvia navigated its historical memory, contrasting these approaches with broader European practices. Narratives and social representations that bridged the past, present, and future were discovered, and the factors that influenced the adherence to specific historical narratives were uncovered. The regulations of collective memory in public spaces, such as monuments and street names, were examined. In this hands-on workshop, objects were created to capture historical memory and transform spaces—whether in homes, communities, or public areas. Basic tools and materials were provided to complete one project. An enriching journey through memory, monuments, and identity was embarked upon.
the working GROUP
No information available at this time.
Pedagogical Approach — Fact Sheet
Workshop title: Historical Memory
Author/coordinator: Egons Peršēvics
Duration/time span: 4 days
The workshop of YES Masterclass #3 – Historical Memory, invited participants to engage in a critical, conceptual, and materially open-ended exploration of how public space becomes a site of contested memory. Departing from conventional sculptural processes, this workshop asked students to “work with nothing”, to begin without fixed materials or predefined outcomes. This deliberate absence created space for improvisation, responsiveness, and reflection, privileging ephemeral, immaterial, and conceptual approaches to art-making.
Context and program
Materials and methodologies
Held at Kuldīga Art House (part of a former Jewish synagogue building complex originally constructed as women’s sections in a prayer house in 1865) the workshop took place within a space rich in symbolic and historical resonance. This context deeply informed the participants’ engagement with materiality, methodology, and conceptual inquiry. Working within the historically charged and symbolically layered landscape of Kuldīga, participants investigated the mechanisms by which monuments, memorials, and commemorative practices both construct and contest collective identity, particularly within the post-Soviet and broader Eastern European context. In this setting, the absence of prescribed materials became an essential technique in itself. Participants experimented with ephemeral and immaterial forms, such as gesture, voice, digital space, and symbolic actions—redefining the sculptural process as one grounded in site-responsiveness, conceptual thinking, and critical reflection.
Can a gesture, a sound, or a digital apparition function as a monument? How does the memory of a space shape current interventions?
Key issues
Results and observations
Participants successfully redefined what a monument can be by embracing non-traditional formats video, augmented reality (AR), sound, gesture, and transient material interventions (e.g., installations in sand). These works challenged dominant expectations of durability, scale, and physical presence often associated with public monuments. This led to a broader reflection on how impermanence can be a deliberate and powerful strategy for representing contested histories or silenced narratives.
Alberro, Alexander, & Stimson, Blake (Eds.). (2000). Conceptual Art: A Critical Anthology. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.
Bishop, Claire. (2012). Artificial Hells: Participatory Art and the Politics of Spectatorship. London: Verso.
Snyder, Timothy. (2010). Bloodlands: Europe between Hitler and Stalin. New York: Basic Books.
References
Information provided and reviewed by each workshop coordinator. Content may be revised or updated.