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Science and art go well together – new stained glass artwork at the ISSP UL

The funding provided by the CAMART2 project has always been about infrastructure upgrade, new projects, search for new collaboration partners, education, boosting the innovation and technology transfer. In short – about the working needs of the institute and its moving force – researchers. But since November, with the help of the project, a stained glass artwork has found its place on an empty wall of the lobby and now it gives joy to the eye and heart of the employees. 

Both science and art share a passion for discovering and exploring the world, expanding boundaries and striving for perfection. The artwork created by the glass artist Ilze Rimicāne and her senior students from the children and youth center “Daugmale” symbolically depicts the scale of the institute’s activities. Although the institute cooperates with more than 100 different organizations from 45 countries, the institute has the largest number of cooperation partners with Sweden, Lithuania, Estonia, Germany, the Czech Republic, France, Italy and Poland, so the national birds and largest rivers of these countries have been chosen to be depicted in the stained glass. When observing the artwork in different lighting, one can see the French national bird rooster, the Italian - sparrow, the Estonian – barn swallow, the Latvian - wagtail, the Swedish - thrush, the Polish - sea eagle. Interestingly, in Germany, the Czech Republic and Lithuania, the national bird is the white stork. The stained glass artwork is not enframed, thus symbolizing the continuous growth in building cooperation locally and internationally.

This is Ilze Rimicāne’s second stained glass artwork at the Institute of Solid State Physics. The first was the artist’s diploma work when she graduated from glass design department of the Latvian Academy of Arts. Symbolically for both the institute and the artist, this has been the beginning of their journey. Now the new chapter begins!