The Unaccountables

15.05.2026. - 15.03.2027.

Informed by the concept of progress, the notion of a ‘human of tomorrow’, increasingly healthy and endowed with various abilities, is, while certainly appealing, also a somewhat risky one. The scientific efforts to bring these ideals to life are the subject of ‘The Undesirables’, an exhibition using a backdrop of past events to outline the pledge made by the modern medicine: longevity, new reproductive options and a generation of genetically enhanced offspring. Life technologies are presented at the exhibition as an ethical challenge. The development of areas like gene engineering, AI diagnostics and interspecies transplantation offers a potential of improved healthcare, while simultaneously further exacerbating the issues of disparity, availability of medical services and the value of life. 

The exhibition was mounted at a time when military conflicts, including the war waged by Russia in Ukraine, have demonstrated that a regime can still declare a whole nation inferior. Meanwhile, the world’s wealthiest people – from the Silicon Valley tycoons to the elites of political regimes – are investing in medical technologies, making sure they can enjoy a longer life and exclusive continuity of their family. The populist and authoritarian trends du jour have prompted the decision to dedicate a significant amount of space in the show to the traumatic historical experiences of the previous century, when the ambitions to establish scientifically and control politically the kind of life deemed desirable lost any humanity. 

The lab-like design of the exhibition lends itself to an interaction between historical artifacts, medical innovations and contemporary art. The exhibits were curated to trace the progression from the myth of the ‘thoroughbred’ aristocracy, early taxonomic efforts of the natural sciences, and agronomic selection to the pseudo theories of eugenics and scientific racism. Practices of nature improvement and self-superiority beliefs rooted in nationalism served as justification for the most radical expressions of the 20th-century biopolitics, from instrumentalization of the Woman-Mother role to forced sterilisation, from promoting healthy reproduction to isolation and extermination of undesirables. The contemporary biotechnological products featured at the exhibition dazzle with their visualisations of digital platforms and commercial offers of a more valuable life, prompting the question: In the name of what or who is the transformation of the living nature by politics, science and capital flows actually taking place? 

The Exhibition Team:

Curators - Kaspars Vanags, Māra Traumane, Igors Gubenko 
Main researcher - Anna Žabicka 
Research support - Ieva Salna, Anta Straumēna, Dita Kļaviņa-Lauberte, Zane Alika, Vinete Blitsone, Indra Taškāne 
Availability of collection and loans - Antra Skripste-Špāka 
Design - MADE arhitekti
Graphic design - Kirils Kirasirovs (Tundra graphic) 
Communication - Ērika Bērziņa, Māris Šteinbergs
Project management - Kristians Priekulis 

Supported by:

The Foundation Remembrance, Responsibility and Future (EVZ Foundation), Riga City Council; State Culture Capital Foundation of Latvia