Anda Lāce

Latvian artist Anda Lāce (1982) was born, lives and works in Riga. Anda Lāce obtained a Master’s degree in Painting at the Art Academy of Latvia, studied at Manchester Metropolitan University. She has participated in exhibitions in Latvia and abroad since 2003, and since 2005 she is organizing solo exhibitions. Alongside painting Anda Lāce has been a co-author, a stage designer and a participant in several “Drawing theatre” shows. The experience of the independent theatre environment has served as one of the roots for her subsequent interest in performance art. Lāce’s performances have taken place since 2010, most frequently in close cooperation with contemporary classical music composers. The paintings, performances, experimental installations, and sculptural formations of the artist are interconnected and mutually complementing types of art practice. Since 2019 Anda Lāce is curator of the socially engaged Sansusī Wellbeing Residency. Her works can be found in the collection of Latvian National Museum of Art, as well as in private collections in Europe.

Many storks died and were injured in the storm that ravaged Latvia on 7 August 2023. During the tragedy of the white storks caused by the storm, on the outside wall of the barn of the former manor house in Gārsene, Latvia, now the creative residence ‘Heaven’, Anda Lāce painted young black storks, also known as gors (Ciconia nigra).

During the tragedy of the white storks caused by the storm, on the outer wall of the barn of the ancient Gārsene manor, which has now become the creative residence “Heaven”, I painted young black storks or storks, also gors (Ciconia nigra), – young birds that are in the process of change, whose beaks and legs have not yet turned bright red. The rapid extinction of black storks in the Baltic area is not happening in front of everyone’s eyes, these birds are timid, they need silence, deep forests where big and strong trees grow. /by Anda/

There are 500-700 pairs of black storks nesting in Latvia, but their number since the early 1990s has decreased by about a third. Forestry activity and the disturbance caused by it played a significant role in the decline of the stork population, and studies of recent years show the negative impact of chemical pollution.

In the photos you can also see the residents of Aknīste Health and Social Care Center. Anda visited the center to talk with the residents about the extinct species of birds and their memories of birds throughout their lives. The residents also participated in the closing ceremony of the bird mural that took place in the festival “Sansusī”.

ACT “Your Birds, Our Birds” Campaign

The ‘Your Birds, Our Birds’ campaign was launched at the IUCN World Conservation Congress in Marseille in September 2021. To spread the impact of this initiative across Europe, ACT has inaugurated the launch of its campaign by inviting all network partners to call upon their local communities of artists, scientists and civic organizations to propose murals of endangered birds. Inspired by the mural by the artist Fikos, in Marseille, implemented by COAL, partner of the ACT network, on the occasion of the IUCN World Conservation Congress, the partners of the network are to propose their mural project.