Dear residents of Riga,
I am an artist from the UK and coming over to Riga to make a temporary public artwork on 10.11.11 and would love you to get involved.
This is part of a large-scale public project across Europe called Exchange Radical Moments, organised by Die Fabrikanten in partnership with the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art in Riga.
The plan is to organise a walk where over 100 people walk down the middle of the road in a line between the Freedom and Victory monuments. I'm hoping to reference the most beautiful protest of all time, The Baltic Way/Chain of Freedom which ran through Riga, from Vilnius to Tallin in 1989, but also to create something new:
a new form of dissent, where there is no clear political message. Instead, there is a concentration on action, by a large group of people, hoping that the mass of people will create confidence and impact upon each individual's psychology.
It is hoped it will become a form of a freer, more democratic protest that belongs to all the participants involved, irrespective of their class, political beliefs. By concentrating on the action of just walking together, nothing specific is protested, rather just a common belief that things are not good.
As soon as you give the government, politicians or the media a reason for protest, they turn it round to what they want it to demonstrate. This time that ain't gonna happen.
So get your walking shoes on, and come for a walk, down the middle of the road on 10 November!
The walk will start from the Freedom Monument at 16:00 and we will walk to the Victory Monument.
Thank you.
Toby Huddlestone
