On the night of 5 to 6 September, the contemporary culture forum “White Night” will take place in the Riga city centre and its neighbourhoods. It has become a favourite event in Riga’s cultural calendar and, for the 21st time, will bring together Riga’s residents and visitors over the first weekend in September for an extensive, free programme of culture and the arts.
During the “White Night”, 30 culture events will take place in Old Riga, the city centre and its neighbourhoods: Āgenskalns, Zasulauks, Dzirciems, Brasa, Skanste, Grīziņkalns, Teika, Vecmīlgrāvis, and Sarkandaugava.
This year’s “White Night” events will be held at venues such as the University of Latvia Botanical Garden, SunsStudio, the Riga Contemporary Art Space and Rātslaukums, Independence Square, Bastejkalns Park, the Riga Congress Centre, Vērmane Garden, the courtyard of the Latvian Puppet Theatre, the French Institute in Latvia, the “Veldze” Creative Quarter, the courtyard of the K. K. von Strick’s Villa, the National Film School of the Latvian Academy of Culture, Kim? Centre for Contemporary Art, the Ghetto Games Amphitheatre, the VEF Culture Palace, the park at the Ziemeļblāzma Culture Palace, and other venues.
Visitors will have the opportunity to attend the now familiar and much-loved events on the “White Night” programme: the annual experimental music festival “Skaņu mežs”, the “Videogrāfija” project and the “Satori” poetry disco. This year, “White Night” invites you to explore street art alongside the artist Dainis Rudens in Sarkandaugava, head to the Antonijas Street Festival, take part in the interactive environmental installation “Elpa / Relaxation field” at Bastejkalns, experience how Antonio Vivaldi’s famous Four Seasons, performed in a historical style, meets electronic music at Grīziņkalns, or, together with international artists, discuss the impact of meat consumption on the environment, public health and animal welfare at the “Art for Meat Tax” festival in the “Veldze” Creative Quarter.
Several artists and artist collectives, such as Voldemārs Johansons, Krista Vindberga-Auzniece, Oto Holgers Ozoliņš, Those Guys Lighting, Līga Spunde, Hanele Zane Putniņa and Ieva Putniņa, will create environmental installations in various locations across Riga especially for “White Night”. Meanwhile, many art and culture festivals – Poetry Days, the “Survival Kit” contemporary art festival, the “2ANNAS” short film festival, the “Riga Last Thursday” night-time gallery programme – will offer their own “White Night” programmes.
The programme will also feature exhibitions, garden parties, cultural events and discussions. Please take a look at the full programme and plan your itinerary at www.baltanakts.lv.
The 2026 “White Night” Contemporary Culture Forum invites us to view the city as a living, multi-layered ecosystem in which plants, animals, insects and other living creatures coexist alongside humans. The motto “The city flourishes where we are” reminds us that a city’s vitality and identity are shaped not only by its buildings, streets and infrastructure, but also by the relationships between people, nature and the surrounding environment. The theme focuses on participation, co-creation, responsibility and the ability to notice what is often overlooked in the hustle and bustle of everyday life. This is a story about everyone who makes the living fabric of the city – the animals, the plants and the invisible processes that keep the city alive. Only by recognising this diversity and the interconnectedness between the city’s residents and their environment in which the city can truly flourish.
The visual identity for this year’s Contemporary Culture Forum was created by Ieva Putniņa, one of the most prominent Latvian artists of her generation. It draws on three new paintings created especially for the forum, featuring animals found in the city interacting with one another in a wide variety of unexpected combinations.
The forum’s underlying idea is a desire to open the city to contemporary art activities for a whole night, offering a broad and diverse selection of cultural events. The “White Night” tradition started in Paris in 2002. Paris was later joined by Brussels, Madrid, Riga and Rome, forming a joint network called “European White Nights” (Nuits Blanches Europe). The “White Night” tradition is upheld not only by cities across Europe, but also in Canada, the US, Japan and elsewhere. In Riga, the contemporary culture forum “White Night” has been taking place since 2006. Its goal is to motivate society to discover the diversity of contemporary culture and to spark a broader interest in cultural events, forms of expression and changes. The “White Night” takes place in the city centre and its neighbourhoods, revealing a city that is open to residents and visitors of different ages, nationalities and social backgrounds. Traditionally, the “White Night” events are held not only in the usual places for culture and art but also in unusual spots, thereby broadening the understanding of what culture can be.
All “White Night” events are free of charge. The event organiser wishes to inform you that photographs and/or videos will be taken during the event. The obtained material may be used for publicity purposes and to inform the public. The event organiser assumes no liability for photographs and/or videos taken by third parties or for their use.
Further information: www.baltanakts.lv and on social media Instagram, Facebook and TikTok @baltanakts
For your information: Linda Vītola | lv@bernay.agency, mediji@riga.lv
Information was prepared by Ineta Miglāne, Project Coordinator, External Communication Division of the Communications Department of the Riga City Council, e-mail: ineta.miglane@riga.lv.