Arturs Pērkons photo-audio exhibition “Time Shift. Photographs. Sounds in Space”

Arturs Pērkons’ photo-audio exhibition “Time Shift. Photographs. Sounds in Space” will be on view at Mentzendorff’s House from November 7 to December 7, 2025. The photographs exhibited in the multimedia exhibition cover the period from 1975 to the beginning of the 21st century. Sound is an essential and emotional component of the message of “Time Shift.”

Arturs Pērkons, photographer, video artist and acoustics specialist, Riga resident whose hometown is Liepāja, outlines the exhibition’s message:

“Exhibition TIME SHIFT is a contemporary art project that aims to present TIME as a peculiar phenomenon in an extraordinary perspective by utilising multimedia mechanisms to create a dialogue between visual vistas and audio landscapes. The source of the original photography is 35-mm slides shown in a unique projector framing.

This photography collection represents a vast timeline, as the oldest photograph shown dates back to 1975, revealing glimpses in time up until the start of the 21st century, when slide photography became redundant in the professional photography scene. Such an approach to the timeline aims to create a paradoxically artificial static timespace.

The multimedia atmosphere of the exhibition is created by spatial soundscapes using an 8-channel sound system. The soundscape, which introduces the dimension of time, enhances the still images by evoking the sensation of a video film, which incorporates movement within still images.”

The exhibition features portraits, views of the urban environment, natural scenes, still lifes, and details significant to the era. Several portraits of Latvian cultural figures, created years ago when a photographer’s camera captured them in the unadulterated ease of an everyday moment, which has now become a sign of a bygone era, are also on display.

The exhibition design was created by artist Varis Siliņš in collaboration with the exhibition’s author, Arturs Pērkons. The exhibition “Time Shift. Photographs. Sounds in Space” can be viewed in the Mentzendorff’s House Exhibition Hall on the attic floor of the building.