An exhibition dedicated to the centenary of Latvijas Banka and created in collaboration with the Latvian National Museum of Art (LNMA) welcomes visitors from 9 October 2022 to 15 January 2023. It invites to look upon money not only as an integral part of the rational economic world, but also as permanent embodiment of cultural and historical symbols, historic and spiritual values of the Latvian people. The exhibition has been created as a visually saturated adventure – its innovative solutions, attractive and educational for visitors of all generations, will evoke positive emotions.
The artistic concept of the exhibition has been developed by designer Arthur Analts, whose "Honey Coin" (2018) won the prestigious Coin of the Year Award.
The conceptual idea of the exhibition is to discover coins as important symbols of Latvia's image and national values, unique objects of art, common values for all of us, conveying stories about significant events and outstanding personalities, creating a long-lasting connection between the past, present and future.
Since 1996, Latvian artists representing different art sectors have participated in designing coins issued by Latvijas Banka, creating them unique with their diversity and innovative approach to minting – always offering new solutions, shapes and material combinations. Latvijas Banka's collector coins have therefore gained wide international recognition and many prizes.
Photo: Vents Āboltiņš
The exhibition is complemented by INSPIRATION CABINETS and PROCESS STAND dedicated to each theme, which help to understand the long path in the coin creation from research, creative searches and selection of ideas to their realisation. Along with artists' sketches and plaster models of coins, associative historical objects, documents and artefacts from various institutions of Latvia are exhibited.
An expanded dimension of the exhibition is given by Arthur Analts' specially created audiovisual installation OUR FUTURE in the LNMA Cupola Hall and the large spatial object OUR SUN at the façade of the museum, which consists of 369 drawings by children and young people, selected in a specially organised competition and reflecting the vision and fundamental values of the future generation of our country, i.e. family, friends, love, homeland, nature, the planet's ecosystem, peace. The shape of the golden disc is associated with both a coin and the sun – a symbol of hope, life, eternal movement, inspiration and spirituality.
In the exhibition's INTERACTIVE SPACE, both children as well as grown-ups may take a pencil to draw, experience a tactile sensing of coin relief, take their drawings home as a memento, get acquainted with the stories by experts and view closer the drawings selected for the competition of the spatial object OUR SUN.
The visitors of the exhibition have a unique opportunity to be the first to see in person a sample of the collector coin "Upwards" dedicated to the centenary of Latvijas Banka. The collector coin is planned to be released in November this year. The coin "Upward" invites and pushes us upward and strives upward itself. This is a progressive coin highlighting Latvijas Banka's journey through the past and clearly pointing in its future direction.
The author of the artistic concept of the exhibition "Our Values” is artist Arthur Analts and the curator is Inese Baranovska, Head of the Museum of Decorative Arts and Design.