The recipient of the Kim? Residency Award 2026 is Agate Tūna
30.1.2026 - 28.2.2026
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Kim? Contemporary Art Centre announces Agate Tūna as the recipient of the Kim? Residency Award 2026! In autumn 2026, the artist will undertake a two-month residency at ISCP (the International Studio & Curatorial Program) in NYC. This marks the seventh collaboration between Kim? and ISCP, with the residency supported for the second consecutive year by the Vija Celmiņš Foundation, covering studio costs.
“Following the work of the ISCP residency selection committee and a review of the artistic materials submitted by the artists nominated for the Kim? residency, we are delighted to announce the recipient of the upcoming residency – artist Agate Tūna.
Tūna is a Riga-based interdisciplinary artist specializing in analogue and experimental photography, extending her practice into installation, video, and sound. Employing techniques such as film soups, chemigrams, and photograms, Tūna assumes the role of a researcher through the use of the camera, questioning and interlinking the realms of reality and fiction.
Since our first encounter with the artist while working on the festival New Address: Eden (2024), it has been exciting to observe the further development of her artistic practice and the continual emergence of new facets within the complex interplay of technology, corporeality, and spirituality. Continuing the tradition of the Kim? and ISCP collaborative residency programme, Tūna will return to Kim? with an ambitious presentation of her first solo exhibition within the institution in the summer of 2027,” reveals Zane Onckule, Programme Director of Kim?.
During the ISCP residency, the artist will develop a new body of work through analogue and experimental photography, combined with archival research into the history of paranormal and spiritual photography. The project focuses on unresolved images, archival gaps, and materials governed by alternative logics of memory, approaching photography as a mutable and performative medium. Through analogue experiments and cameraless techniques, the residency will support an ongoing inquiry into the afterlives of images and the processes through which images are preserved, transformed, or lost.
Agate Tūna is a multidisciplinary artist from Riga, Latvia, working with analogue photography, experimental video and sound art. Her practice explores the relationship between spirituality and technology from a woman’s perspective, tracing connections between her family’s spiritual heritage, hauntology, quartz crystals and techno-specters. Photography, as a “haunted medium,” is central to her work, combining chemigrams, self-portraits, staged compositions, and direct interaction with photographic materials, artist creates images that balance between documentary narratives and imagination.
She holds a BA in Painting (2020) and an MA from the interdisciplinary department POST (2023) at the Art Academy of Latvia, graduate of the ISSP School (2022). Recent projects include solo exhibitions Familiar at Gallery 427, Riga (2026), and Voltentity at Gallery ASNI, Riga (2025). Recent group exhibitions include GenZ at Musée Photo Elysée, Lausanne (2025); Neurons Desperately Seek Each Other at Riga Photography Biennial, Gallery Smilga, Riga (2025); Under the Sun at TUR Art Space, Riga, in collaboration with 1646, The Hague (2025); New Address: EDEN at Kim? Hanzas 22, Riga (2024); Contemporary Histories of Photography I at ISSP Gallery, RFB, Riga (2024) as well as a residency at Cité Internationale des Arts, Paris (2025). Tūna is a FUTURES Talent (2024) and a Plat(t)form participant at Fotomuseum Winterthur (2025). Nominated for the Purvītis Prize (2025) and for The Annual Art Award of Latvia (2026) in the category Artist of the Year.
ISCP is a comprehensive, international visual arts residency programme that has hosted more than 1,300 artists and curators from over 55 countries to date. Agate Tūna will be one of the residents, with the opportunity to present her practice to internationally recognised curators and art professionals through studio visits, fostering exchange of ideas, increasing the international visibility of her work, and establishing new professional connections.
The Kim? Residency Award was established in 2015 with the aim of supporting the development, professional growth, and international recognition of Latvian artists. The award offers a promising Latvian artist the opportunity to participate in a residency programme at one of Kim?’s partner institutions abroad. Previous recipients of the residency award include Darja Meļņikova, who undertook a residency at KW Institute for Contemporary Art, Berlin (2015); Ieva Epnere, ISCP, New York (2016); Ieva Kraule, Gasworks, London (2017); Diāna Tamane, Artport Tel Aviv (2018); Maija Kurševa, ISCP, New York (2019); Krišs Salmanis, ISCP, New York (2021); Elza Sīle, ISCP, New York (2022); Līga Spunde, ISCP, New York (2023); Jānis Dzirnieks, ISCP, New York (2024); and Karlīna Mežecka, ISCP, New York (2025).