Spaceship Earth
10.10.–28.12.2025.
The wind howls, thunder rumbles, a heart beats. A tractor engine starts and a bus sets off. A kiss. A mother comforts her crying child. The clacking of stone tools. Crickets chirping, birds singing and hyenas laughing. A steam locomotive whistles and a horse trots by pulling a carriage.
These and other sounds of our planet, together with an eclectic selection of world music and greetings in fifty-five languages, are recorded on two Golden Records that have been traveling into the infinite darkness of space since 1977, carried by the Voyager 1 and Voyager 2 probes. With an expected lifespan of at least one billion years, the Golden Records were conceived as a message to other intelligent beings, should they one day encounter them. At present, they are drifting away from the solar system at a rate of one and a half million kilometers per day.
In 1977, documentary filmmaker Uldis Brauns also released his film essay Journey to Earth, which portrays a contradictory, accelerating, and fragile world: technological advancements and the Space Race, the ecological toll of consumerism and industrialization, the threat of nuclear war, abundance and destruction. By sequencing newsreel cuts from seventy-two countries, Brauns invites us to see our planet as a spaceship – one that everyone is responsible for maintaining and protecting. The film’s poster features Ilmārs Blumbergs’ colour lithograph Opposites, in which the elemental forces of nature morph into streams of information – “symbols, mystical and esoteric drawings, ciphers, pictograms, and messages about ourselves that humankind sends into the universe.”
Continuing these interplays, the exhibition Spaceship Earth sequences graphic works from the second half of the twentieth century, reflecting on ways of being in the world – a world that is adapted, transformed, violated, and lived.
The exhibition Spaceship Earth includes works by Māris Ārgalis, Ilmārs Blumbergs, Valdis Celms, Lilija Dinere, Dzidra Ezergaile, Inārs Helmūts, Aleksandrs Kramarevs, Zenta Logina, Georgs Smelters, Genādijs Suhanovs, Semjons Šegelmans, Nele Zirnīte and other artists from the Zuzāns Collection, as well as works from Latvian National Museum of Art, Museum of the Artists’ Union of Latvia, Cesis Museum, and private collections.
ABOUT THE CURATORS:
Gustavs Grasis carries out his creative practice in the fields of architecture, photography, and design, engaging as a researcher and storyteller. He pays particular attention to developing case studies where, alongside personal narratives, new histories emerge and the interplay between design and the environment is revealed. Gustavs gives public talks and contributes to informal education, collaborating with academic institutions and non-governmental organizations across the Baltic States, and produces written work and photography for regional publications.
Valters Kalsers is a graphic designer and co-founder of Support System studio, he’s working on visual identities, editorial projects, and graphic experiments. He approaches design by investigating existing symbolic notation systems, adapting and reworking them to explore new meanings. Alongside his independent practice, he is a guest lecturer at the Art Academy of Latvia. His recent work investigates connections between Latvian wildlife, post-soviet culture, and collective memory.
Images:
Genādijs Suhanovs. Škila I (Unknown device). 1979.
Ārgalis Māris (artist), Tipogrāfija “Cīņa” (publisher). Poster. Toys for Adults, Ārgalis, 1978, Cēsis. 1979.
Blumbergs Ilmārs, Riga Exemplary Typography (publisher). Affiche. Riga Film Studio’s full-length documentary ‘Journey to Earth’. 1978.