A STROLL IN THE MIDDLE OF BIRTH AND DEATH. 40 years to the famous walks to Bolderāja.

As you might have already noticed, CAPITAL R has carried out two virtual walks from home during the coronavirus lockdown. This, our third tour dedicated to the 40th anniversary of the legendary series of performative walks along the Bolderāja railway, is the first finally taking place outside.

gājiens uz bolderāju, capital r, capital riga, mārtiņš eņģelis, hardijs lediņš, juris boiko

In 1980, a legendary series of hikes along this railway you see in front of us, were initiated by one of the most prominent and innovative postmodernists and creatives in the history of Soviet Latvia - Hardijs Lediņš and Juris Boiko, as well as Imants Žodžiks.

These saunters along the rails were intended to be of a meditative purpose, usually took place at the passage of day and night (either before dusk or dawn), and initially were never planned to be public. The walks connecting Imanta and Bolderāja suburbs were always meant to be solitary rituals, but were later supplemented with performative elements, early spatial mappings, poetry, and multi-media documentation.

Juris Boiko (Hardijs Lediņš, 1982)

Hardijs Lediņš and Juris Boiko were one of the most influential interdisciplinary artists in the history of Latvia, with their work spanning over decades when using literature, performance, music (both experimental, new wave, and ambient), as well as architecture, pop culture, theories of urbanity and postmodernity as their tools of expression.

Hardijs Lediņš, Juris Boiko (J. Saulītis, 1987).

Joined by other cultural figures Latvians know well today, including the mentioned architects Imants Žodžiks as well as Aigars Sparāns, musicians Inguna Černova, Nils Īle, Ieva Akurātere, Edīte Baušķeniece, Mārtiņš Rutkis, and Roberts Gobziņš, the most influential new wave band in Latvia, Dzeltenie Pastnieki (The Yellow Postmen), and many, many others, Lediņš and Boiko would later create NSRD.

In direct translation as “Workshop for the restoration of unfelt feelings”, the NSRD creative crew was an intellectual solace during the soviet 80s. A creative island to those hungry for something liberating from forms and ideology, something experimental, unconventional, wild, and approximate (hence the term “approximate art” often used when formulating their work during and after).

Aleksandrs Aksjonovs, Aigars Sparāns, Jāzeps "Baltinavietis" Kukulis (Māris Bogustovs, 1987).

“Walks to Bolderāja” have a proto-NSRD status since the first stroll along the Bolderāja railway took place in 1980 – two years before the creative crew was established. Despite that, each walk very much resembled everything what NSRD would later become – alternative, experimental, multimedia, philosophical, postmodern, avant-garde; according to the still existing conformist soviet art ideology back then - also marginal.

The walks were recorded in sound and video, painted, and photographed. Most of the poetry created along the way would soon become one of the most recognizable lyrics in songs by The Yellow Postmen.

Hardijs Lediņš (Juris Boiko, 1982).

The first stroll would result in an experimental album, the second – in compact paintings, the third was fully recorded on type, only fixating footsteps and a few air planes passing by. The forth would take place during Easter and introduce performative elements like eating eggs, preparing them for fermentation and leaving on the way.

Since Hardijs Lediņš was an educated architect, his interest in urban space resulted in what we can call one of the most influential first urban mapping exercises in Latvia. The “Māja Bolderājā”, or “House in Bolderāja” series from 1984 would examine the railway and its surroundings as means of dwelling, both conventional and unconventional, and the ability to inhabit locations seemingly not even meant to be inhabited.

Hardijs Lediņš - "Māja Bolderājā" (Imants Žodžiks, 1984).

The walks by NSRD would continue until 1987 with a separate one in 1988 by Juris Boiko and his becoming wife. Then the creative crew would disband in 1989, and the walks would continue by Boiko’s and Lediņš’ friends and comrades instead - even up until today. Only in 2002, when celebrating 20-year anniversary of NSRD, Lediņš would return one last time, again on Easter, to measure the legendary distance without Boiko (who died tragically soon after and Lediņš – two years later).

Instead of taking place on 30 November like in 1980, CAPITAL R chose to livestream the 40-year-anniversary walk from Imanta to Bolderāja on 14 June. This is a very symbolic date and time - 14 June is the day the second "GĀJIENS UZ BOLDERĀJU" took place in 1981, introducing intentional visual documentation for the first time, as well as this virtual tour, beginning 2 hours before the dusk precisely on 20:20, marks the exact date between Hardijs Lediņš' birth and death.

This passage of the light and darkness, and life and death, tamed and untamed, is what “Walks to Bolderāja” have always represented. Their purpose was to serve as a meditative intervention somewhere “in-between” - in the middle of zen and high-tech, in the middle of clarity and obscurity, between tangible and intangible experience and documentation. It was a passage between the city as a living space, crossings, forests, seemingly infinite fields and then back to the city, now as an industrial neighbourhood.

Hardijs Lediņš, Dainis Kļava (Māris Bogustovs, 1987).

Today you are welcome to join CAPITAL R to this passage between the given domains and follow our livestream to Bolderāja along its railway. In 1982, the walk took place in late autumn when it was predestined to be a ritual for the snow. Indeed, few days later it began to fall. Meanwhile, closed to the public in 1959, the Bolderāja route was reintroduced to daily plans of the Ministry of Traffic only roughly a year ago.

Let this walk today serve as a ritual for the returning of the public train like the snow returned in 1982. Many things could go wrong: technical issues, weather turning for the worse, even the walk being stopped in the middle by guards. But as Hardijs Lediņš said on an interview in the 80s, "no matter if there's a thousand people there, or if they keep asking stupid questions, it must not disturb you, you - are going to Bolderāja..."