From May 26 to June 1, a new contemporary art festival, the Riga Art Week (RAW), will take place for the first time. The visual system of RAW, created by the design studio Support System, explores the timeline of the festival and highlights the apt acronym of the event.

This week, the art and design gallery Part Time opened the exhibition Vacation by illustrator and artist Oskars Pavlovskis. Oskars creates his work using a variety of techniques, and in the Nice Touch section, he talks about software, which he likens to a Swiss Army knife.

Installed across five Riga neighbourhoods, the sculptures were created by design studio H2E in collaboration with landscape architecture studio ALPS and prominent Latvian philosophers, on the initiative of Swedbank. Each sculpture interprets the circle in a unique way, symbolising the transformative power of ideas.

Last week, the Latvian pavilion Landscape of Defence, jointly designed by Sampling and Nomad, opened at the Venice Architecture Biennale. In the Nice Touch section, one of the authors of the exhibition, architect and co-founder of Nomad Florian Betat, talks about the moment he gets the best ideas.

The Eclipse bar cabinet by the Latvian design brand Kanttari has just won a silver award in the furniture design category of the international design competition A’ Design Award 2025.

On May 17 and 18, thousands of runners will fill the streets of Riga, as the annual Rimi Riga Marathon is about to celebrate its 35th anniversary. This years medals and shirts have been designed by Ivars Heinrihsons and Helēna Heinrihsone.

Roberta Atraste, the winner of the Riga Photography Biennial’s Next 2025 programme award Emerging Curator! and curator of the exhibition The Bureaucrat Who Secretly Reads Poetry shares an indispensable tool in her creative process.

Creative director Dārta Apsīte believes that we need the poetic and the beautiful as much as the practical. Under her leadership, a new phase in Riga’s communication with its residents began but currently, Dārta is taking on a new challenge and has founded the design and communication studio Ausme.

At the end of March, the British publishing house Hardie Grant London released the third book by Latvian illustrator Viktorija Semjonova. Her latest book, Drawing Nature: 100 Prompts, Projects and Playful Exercises, offers tasks and step-by-step guidance to make drawing accessible to everyone.

This week marks 12 years of FOLD covering Latvia’s creative industries. In the Nice Touch section, FOLD co-founder Evelīna Ozola, the chief designer of Riga, shares tools that help her manage the downsides of long hours at the computer.

From April 24 to May 17, the art and design gallery Part Time will host the solo exhibition Kissing Branches by Vilnius-based Irish artist and illustrator Nathanaël Roman. Nathanaël, who works under the pseudonym Pipe & Pallet, combines illustration, sound, and movement in his work.

The proposal by artists and designers Bruno Birmanis and Mareunrol’s, focusing on the history of Latvian avant-garde fashion, has won the competition for Latvia’s pavilion at the 61st International Art Exhibition of the Venice Biennale.