‘Nail Salon – Obsession with the Sensory’
Panel discussion for the finissage of the current exhibition by and with ĒTER:

• ĒTER
  Dagnija Smilga
  Kārlis Bērziņš
  Niklāvs Paegle
  https://eeter.net/

• Dina Suhanova
  Architect, Researcher, Author at Art Academy of Latvia, Institute of Contemporary Art, Design and Architecture
  https://www.lma.lv/en/academy/people/dina-suhanova

• Laura Dorothea Estermann
  Nail Artist and Architecture Student
  @laudo.nails

Obsession with the sensory, imaginative physical world, alongside complete, evolving prototypes of public spaces is taking the form of a Nail Salon in Vienna. Contemporary nail art and salon culture becomes a portal for jumping scales, directly connecting the human body to a world of sensory and haptic materials. The installation is set out to explore the phenomenon of wellbeing juxtaposed with fragments of architectural practice. In the opening act @Pinkyswear_studio will execute one-off nail designs with visitors lying on the daybeds, tucked in a heavy blanket with deep sound waves reverberating through their gut. The exhibition is a fraction of an ongoing search for clues to a new-or-perhaps-forgotten-kind of awareness of the built environment and a desire for profound togetherness.

Silent retreats, autogenic training, ASMR, breathing techniques, digital detox, embracing the joy of missing out (JOMO instead of FOMO) - to name a few spatial practices of self-medication against stress, anxiety, loneliness and insomnia. An asorti of Media Chapel, Nail Salon and a Backdoor Club, the exhibition integrates 1:1 scale furniture prototypes, material experiments, architectural models, videos and photography in a democratic social space, open towards these domains.

Through the Baltic outlet of our practice, we maintain close ties with contemporary culture, arts and technology. These ties are often set up in a non-reglament, direct way. We see the Baltics not only as a free, experimental platform, but also as Europe’s political frontier of the Middle-North, undergoing a process of decolonization in research and development.