The artist Agate Tūna receives the BDO young artist award 2023

The highest jury assessment and the fourth BDO young artist award this year went to artist Agate Tūna with the installation "Techno-ghost". Along with this award, the artist also gets a cash prize - 2000 EUR.

The artwork "Techno-ghost" metaphorically refers to the digital footprints that people leave in the virtual environment. They can be trivial, like cached website data, or more visible, like social media posts that can continue to "haunt" our online personas long after they're created. From archived emails to inactive social media profiles, collective digital existence spreads across the vast electrical spectrum of the web. This network, which performs countless data updates and save functions every day, is home to a vast "ghost" dwelling. The ghost, a recurring motif in the author's artistic activity, embodies the continuous practice of capturing and depicting the elusive in photography. On the other hand, the used experimental photography technique, chemograms, resembles a carefully performed magic trick, capturing a photo without a camera. Like a magic trick, the power of photography lies not only in the final image, but also in the process of its creation, which is as complex and multifaceted as the images it produces.

“New technologies and media are never really 'new', but rather serve as transformations or enhancements of previous inventions. Thus, in my practice, it is useful to combine digital and analog methods, promoting an intriguing dialogue between the two," said laureate Agate Tūna.

Agate Tūna was nominated for the final along with four other artists, graduates of the LMA master's program - Annemarija Gulbi, Marta Viktorija Agrum, Dzeldi Mierkalni and Katrīna Ieva.

"BDO Young Artists Award" is an initiative of BDO Latvia, in cooperation with the Latvian Academy of Arts (LMA), KIM? The PILOT of contemporary art centers and experimental art spaces, the purpose of which is to support young artists after graduating from LMA master's studies in one of the sub-branches of the visual, visual plastic or audio-visual media art departments, in order to promote the artist's recognition and professional career development after graduation.

Competition jury: LMA rector, professor Kristaps Zariņš, LMA vice-rector, art scholar Antra Priede, BDO Latvia board chairman Vita Liberte, BDO Latvia managing partner Jānis Zelmenis, Kim? Evita Goze, executive director of the Contemporary Art Center, and Sabīne Vernere, head of the Experimental Art Space PILOT.

The first BDO young artist award in 2020 was awarded to Amanda Ziemele with a monotype from a series of works at the solo exhibition in Neunauge, 2019, (Eckernforde, Germany). Reinis Bērziņš became the laureate of the second BDO young artist award in 2021 with the work "///(((!"). The third BDO young artist award in 2022 was awarded to Lienea Rumpei with the art work "Painter Ninja Exercises".


Exhibition opening hours:
November 9, 2023 - January 25, 2024
O., T., C., P., Se. 12:00 – 18:00
PILOT address: Riharda Vagnera street 3, Riga
Free entrance