LAUKKU is and international collective of co-thinkers and co-doers founded by Max Ryynänen (Finland), Annemari Autere (France), Inta Balode, Valts Miķelsons and Linda Krūmiņa (Latvia) in 2017 as a continuation of yearly laboratories “New Dance in a New Place” taking place since 2013. “Laukku” means “travel bag” in Finnish and it relates to “lauku” meaning “rural” in Latvian. LAUKKU aims to promote contemporary art in rural and peripheral areas and build artistic alternatives through challenging urban lifestyles in big cities and centers. Peripheries and mobility are the two fundamental elements of our collective. Now are an international group with members from Latvia, Finland, France, Germany, the UK, Sweden, the USA and Denmark. We do collective work, so everything always begins with travelling or zooming. LAUKKU unites professionals and enthusiasts from different art fields and other disciplines. LAUKKU pays particular attention to research, arts education, interdisciplinary collaborations and experiments. Community engagement projects play a crucial role in LAUKKU’s work. LAUKKU aims to promote critical thinking and the presence of contemporary arts and in particular contemporary dance in everyday life, paying particular attention to the territories and communities where access to the variety of opinions is limited. Since 2022 LAUKKU has started to develop LAUKKU home – artists’ residency in the forest of North Latvia near a tiny village called Braslava. The house was previously owned by a Latvian-American extravagant artist Eso Antons Benjamiņš.
2020 (postponed to 2022 due to Covid-19 pandemic) – “Active Body Memories”
