LAUKKU is an international collective founded by a Finnish, French / Norwegian and Latvian group of thinkers and arts doers in 2017 as a continuation of yearly laboratories “New Dance in a New Place” since 2013. Our aim is to promote contemporary art in rural and peripheral areas, build artistic alternatives through challenging urban lifestyles in big cities and centers. “Laukku” means “travel bag” in Finnish and it relates to “lauku” meaning “rural” in Latvian. Peripheria and mobility are the two fundamental elements of our collective.

We are an international group with members currently from Latvia, Finland, France, Germany, UK, Sweden, USA and Denmark, and we do collective work, so everything always begins with traveling or zooming. LAUKKU philosophy includes such principles as: We believe there are unforeseen artistic potentials outside of the centers, which do not meet the institutional expectations and needs of the centers. LAUKKU cultivates regional art and philosophy by engaging with rural outsider artists, hillbilly audiences, nature and the material resources of the countryside. We believe that there is truly a new life to be found in the geographical margins, and that includes in the future a new institutional framework. LAUKKU is yeast, all over the cultural dough of the life of the villages, forests and small towns, boosting the organic growth of regional cultural formations, criteria, critique, research and institutional rhizomes. We want to be productive like yogurt, bread root and blue cheese (cultures of mold) – global, cosmopolite and regional at the same time.