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Evita Vasiļjeva (b. 1985, Riga) is a Latvian-Russian contemporary artist and educator living and working between Riga and Paris. Shaped by her upbringing in post-Soviet Latvia, her practice reflects on the visual and sonic remnants of architecture and the unfinished landscapes left in the wake of the Soviet Union’s collapse. She draws from a period when Latvia began constructing a new identity atop the unresolved fragments of its past, weaving these traces into her artistic language.
Working across outdoor sculpture, site-specific installation, and sensory environments, Vasiļjeva explores the interplay between structure and fragmentation, history and future, decay and renewal. Her work asks how we experience time - both as memory and as presence - through the shifting material and spatial contexts that surround us.
By repurposing and transforming diverse materials, Vasiļjeva develops a distinctive aesthetic that connects architecture, memory, dreaming, and embodied perception. Her works often touch on themes of anxiety, control, and resilience, yet they also open up delicate possibilities for coexistence. Conceptually rigorous but resistant to a single narrative, they invite viewers to engage through their own emotions, histories, and interpretations.
In 2022, Vasiļjeva was nominated for the 8th Purvītis Prize for outstanding achievement in visual art in Latvia and exhibited at the Latvian National Museum of Art in a duo exhibition with artist Kaspars Groševs. Recent exhibitions include the Lyon Biennale (2022, curated by Till Fellrath and Sam Bardaouil); Una Boccata d’Arte (2023, Fondazione Elpis, curated by Bruno Barsanti), Italy; Intermezzo (2023, Kunsthal 44Moen, Denmark, curated by Rene Block); Baltic Triennial 14: The Endless Frontier (2021, Contemporary Art Centre, Vilnius, curated by Valentinas Klimašauskas and João Laia); Muzeum Sztuki, Łódź (2020, curated by Inga Lāce); Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga (2019); Tallinn City Gallery (2018, curated by Kim?); and Fondation Ricard, Paris (2018, curated by Barbara Sirieix, Maija Rudovska, and Joachim Hamou).
Her works are included in the collection of the Latvian National Museum of Art and the Brussels City public art collection, as well as in private collections internationally.
Recently she has expanded her practice into teaching. In 2025 she co founded the experimental Blue Lagoon Summer School in Riga, Latvia together with artist Kaspars Groševs. It is an annual summer program developed and run by Vasiļjeva in collaboration with Kim? Contemporary Art Centre.
From 2025 to 2027 she serves as an evaluator for European Union funded projects in visual arts.
Evita Vasiljeva ©
