SLUG RESIDENCIES

In early August, artists Danute Līva and Filips Staņislavskis arrived at the Sansusī Art Residency Center Susēja to explore the Spanish slug and the context of its spread in Latvia. Through this process, they create installations and public workshops that invite audiences to reflect on this “uninvited guest” while opening up wider questions about the climate crisis, globalisation, and the role of civic engagement in society.

Can the Spanish slug become a prism through which to think about belonging, responsibility, and coexistence today?

The artists describe the project as an attempt to bring together ecological reality and artistic speculation, personal experience and collective thought, and the local context with global processes. They are interested in the slug not only as a pest, but also as a sign of larger forces at work: climate change, globalisation, the human urge to control the environment, and rigid ways of thinking. At the same time, this organism also becomes a personal challenge: aesthetic, emotional, and even phobic, as Danute lives with molluscophobia.

The project is supported by the European Union, the GEAR UP! project, and Latvian Platform for Development Cooperation (LAPAS). This publication was co-funded by the European Union. Its contents are the sole responsibility of the organisers of “Slug Residencies” project and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Union.