A Vocabulary for Ghosts | Riga Photography Biennial 2026
Saskia Fischer, Tom Lovelace, Ona Barbora Šlapšinskaite
18.04.2026 - 20.05.2026

Curator: Paulius Petraitis

Exhibition design: Santa Ozoliņa

To exist is always to exist alongside others - people, systems, memories and presences that remain partially unseen. A vocabulary for ghosts proposes that co-existence is not only a social or political condition, but also a form of cohabiting with ghosts: invisible forces, archived and unarchived memories, and quiet presences that inhabit the periphery of our attention. The exhibition brings together three artists who develop distinct visual and material vocabularies to articulate - and, in subtle ways, care for - these spectral or marginal states.

Here, "ghosts" are not understood as supernatural entities, but as traces, residues, withheld stories, transitional spaces, and silent infrastructures that shape lived experience. These presences occupy the margins: the blue-hour edges of landscapes, the blind spots of bureaucratic systems, and the ambiguous boundaries of objects and materials. Each artist works with what is fragile or insufficiently legible, constructing a language for what typically resists representation. This pursuit echoes the ghostly mechanics of photography itself: a medium built upon the latent image, where unseen impressions wait in the dark to slowly emerge, revealing a hidden presence, or perhaps remaining permanently obscured.

In this context, tending to ghosts requires a tender and sensitive visual practice - one attuned to fragility, erasure and what might be described as the politics of attention. This installation at ASNI Gallery brings these vocabularies into dialogue through spatial gestures that emphasise thresholds, transitions, and the porousness between material and immaterial.

Each of the three artistic practices illuminates a different dimension of the "ghostly" in contemporary life. Saskia Fischer explores ecological and emotional margins, using film to articulate forms of caretaking that unfold outside dominant narratives. Ona Barbora Šlapsinskaité exposes the residues of bureaucratic systems through redacted call-centre notes and experimental sculptural forms -objects that register both erasure and preservation, functioning as delicate material traces of invisible labour. Tom Lovelace works with photograms and performative interventions to foreground the instability of presence, gesture and attention, activating the exhibition space as a site where images emerge, fade and are re-encountered. Together, their practices propose co-existence as an ongoing negotiation with what remains obscured, fragile or only partially legible.

Saskia Fischer is a visual artist working between Stuttgart and Vilnius. Her practice spans photography, seulpture, and film, frequently exploring ecological and emotional margins. Often working with what is fragile or overlooked, she articulates forms of caretaking that unfold outside dominant narratives. She holds an MFA from Goldsmiths, London, and teaches at the State Academy of Fine Arts Stuttgart.

Tom Lovelace is a London-based artist whose work occupies the spaces between photography and performance. His practice is deeply shaped by phenomenology, theatre, and the legacies of abstraction. Central to his research is the ongoing Living Pictures series, which activates architecture, art history, and the photographic image through performative interventions. He lectures at the Royal Colege of Art, London.

Ona Barbora Šlapšinskaite is an artist and educator based in Vilnius, Lithuania. She creates installations in which personal memories, family stories, and political contexts unfold, sometimes creating conditions for different communities to meet. Drawing on auto- and biographical material woven into fictional narratives, her work highlights the influence of history and ideological heritage on past, present, and future identities.

Supported by: State Culture Capital Foundation