Latvia: Untamed Assembly: Backstage of Utopia

Titled Untamed Assembly: Backstage of Utopia, the exhibition for the Latvian Pavilion at the 2026 Venice Biennale presents a new work by the interdisciplinary artist duo MAREUNROL'S—Rolands Pēterkops and Mārīte Mastiņa-Pēterkopa—in dialogue with alternative fashion designer Bruno Birmanis and the archives of the Untamed Fashion Assemblies (UFA), a series of experimental fashion, art, and performance events founded by Birmanis that took place in Riga between 1990 and 1999. Curated by Inga Lāce and Adomas Narkevičius, the exhibition links past and present, highlighting utopian thinking at moments of transition. It asks how collective imagination, desire, and visibility are produced as political and economic systems shift, and how futures and new forms of togetherness are rehearsed behind the scenes rather than on the main stage. The installation by MAREUNROL'S rethinks the legacy of UFA and is conceived as a backstage—a space of preparation, invisible labour, joy, improvisation and human connection. The clothing rack, ubiquitous in any backstage, becomes a holding device and the architecture of the stories, while recurring motifs such as birds and textile sculptures, carry memories of flight, risk and fragility. Taking place during a decade of profound political transformation, UFA expanded fashion across visual art, music, and club culture. Defying conservative social norms inherited from the Soviet era, the Assemblies offered an alternative to the commercialised fashion markets in the West. Bodily display and costume also became tools for negotiating new identities through drag, role-play and deliberate exaggeration. For a short time, international media coverage positioned Riga as an unexpected avant-garde hub. Improvised and collaborative, the Assemblies brought students and international stars onto the same stage. Young Baltic designers such as Bruno Birmanis, Juozas Statkevičius, and Sandra Straukaitė appeared alongside Paco Rabanne, Vivienne Westwood, Zandra Rhodes, and Andrew Logan; among future global icons, Viktor & Rolf passed through as students. Across the installation, newly digitised footage from Birmanis' archive traces the threads of travel and border-crossing, transnational community building, scarcity as the force for creativity and newly gained yet fragile political freedom. Returning to this archive, the pavilion asks what can be gathered today from the utopian visions of these festivals.