On 24 September, 2016 from 15:00 to 19.00 Aldara Park in Sarkandaugava hosted a festival, where everyone could participate in creative and educational activities. Aldara Park, which in recent months saw a number of youth platform “city laboratory” activities, was now a home to Latvian, Finnish and Belarusian young people who learned the basic principles of urban planning.
Festive activities began with drawing on the monolithic concrete wall that fences off the park from the Latvian Culture Museum “Dauderi”. The graphic image of the wall was created by stencil artist Dainis Rudens or “Rudens Stencils,” but the process was open to all visitors to join.
At 16.00 the festival visitors were addressed by the pioneer of street sports and culture movement “Ghetto Games” Raimonds Elbakjans, who told about Grīziņkalns neighbourhood improvement and engagement of young people in it, and together with “Sarkandaugava development society” leader Alija Turlaja they involved participants of the event, in creating new ideas for the neighbourhood improvement.
The group of Sarkandaugava inhabitants „No to train noise!” invited the people of Riga and, especially, Sarkandaugava to express their views and listen to others at the free microphone at 17.00. The event was on trying to reduce the noise levels of SJSC “Latvian Railway” rail infrastructure, causing noise and vibration in Sarkandaugava. Turning to the Latvian Ministry of Transport and the JSC “Latvian Railway” so far have not yielded results. You can listen to the conversation with Ēriks Pozemkovskis, a representative of the group, on the radio broadcast #Zaļā Ceturtdiena on October 13.
At Aldara Park there was an exhibition of reconstruction design contest entries and the possibility to participate in negotiations on the lives of young people in the city and their role in shaping neighbourhoods. Visitors of all ages will have the opportunity to participate in the autumn-inspired creative workshops of „homo ecos:” and, using natural materials make animals, different figures, photo frames and lanterns for the dark autumn evenings. During the festival there was a photo exhibition “Climate Witnesses” – a visual story of climate change testimonies in different places in Latvia from different people who have been watching changes in the nature in their neighbourhood for many years.
From 18.00 to 19.00 DJ Toms Grēviņš performed on the stage, built of recycled materials. In spring the DJ expressed the idea of building a simple and accessible stage in Sarkandaugava, which was implemented in the summer by the urban intervention in Aldara Park.
The event was hosted by the improvisational theater actor Mārtiņš Kozlovskis.
Urban training, created within the framework of “Green Manual For Youth Space”, took place on September 24-25, which was attended by young people from Latvia, Belarus and Finland. The goal of the urban planning training is to place young people and their needs in the center of the process, since they are the part of society that is often forgotten in the planning of urban spaces. Training included discussions, sharing of best practices, and Aldara Park was used as a space in which to apply the knowledge acquired during training.
Aldara Park Festival in photos.
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