Artist Mobility and the Baltic Cities: Revealing a Transnational Art World

Abstract

Mobility is an important part of the everyday life and practice of artists. Many artists take part in short-term mobility in order to gain inspiration, form partnerships and contacts, and create networks and/or collaborations. Some of these pathways created through mobilities are well-established while other transnational connections have only recently been formed as artists connect to new, emerging art centres. With each new connection usually linking up yet another city, and with every artist presenting a different set of connections and trajectories, the artistic ‘transnation’ (Yeoh and Willis 2004, 1) is constantly developing. This article describes how this type of short-term, multi-directional mobility not only creates connections, forms collaborations, and helps to establish transnational communities, but is also vital in helping liminal cities to become part of the so-called global art world. More importantly, these artists’ base remains in the Baltic cities - Vilnius, Riga, and Tallinn - as they are moving only temporarily. This mobile population, in turn, enables the Baltic cities to become a hub of connections or ‘relational spaces’. This article argues that such forging of ‘routes’ via mobility rather than planting permanent ‘roots’ (Clifford 1997, 1) in migration has helped the network of Baltic cities to form a transnational region and become part of the global art world.