PIEDRUJA-DRUJA
2024-now
Research-based architectural & multimedia project
on the Eastern EU borderland
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Developed together with Danute Līva
Borders aren’t simply places where something ends, and something else starts - they’re gradients, where cultures, identities, and languages blend together. Yet, the borderland is a space that is often exploited by those in power, by fragmenting locals’ lives and violating refugees’ basic human rights.
Piedruja-Druja is a research-based project focused on a village divided by the Latvia-Belarus border. The Daugava/Dzvina river splits the village, which also marks both a national and European Union boundary. Piedruja-Druja emerged in the 16th century on the Druja (Belarus) side and later extended across the river (Latvia). And since then, it has been continuously separated and united under various political powers. This history has cultivated a unique borderland identity, where the sense of self isn’t tied to a single nation but is shaped by multiple influences and the several languages spoken daily.
Due to the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the humanitarian crisis that began in 2021, the Baltic states have been heavily militarising their borderlands, bringing a completely new architectural layer to the region. Places like Piedruja–Druja are losing their cultural heritage and becoming militarised zones where every step is surveilled.
The project is currently evolving into essays, architectural-installation and a publication that are based on fieldwork in the region.The project is a collaboration with Danute Līva, latvian artistic researcher.
1. Fieldwork
Throughout the project, two fieldwork in the borderland have been done, including one visit to Druja. This involved working with archival photos, documenting the ongoing militarisation and spatial violence towards the refugees, and engaging in conversations with locals to listen to their lived experience of division and the village’s spatial transformation.
To unpack the humanitarian crisis in greater detail, we collaborate with I Want To Help Refugees, a Latvian NGO whose activists and volunteers support undocumented people within Latvia. Together, we visited closed detention centres and undocumented refugee graves. They support us by providing testimonies of people who crossed the BY-LV border and other relevant material related to the crisis.
View on Druja from Piedruja (photo: May 2024)
Surveillance tower in Piedruja (photo: April 2025)
Cut trees in the place of a future border wall along the river in Piedruja, Latvia (photo: April 2025)
Anti-tank barriers "dragonteeth" in Piedruja (photo: April 2025)
2. Mapping as Storytelling
Apart from the physical layout of the village, the map of Piedruja-Druja brings together past and present activities and structures that arise in the context of the borderland, such as cigarette smuggling, border wall construction, or the ferry that once connected the village. This non-linear approach offers a broader overlook of lived and spatial realities of the borderland, which stretches over years rather than a single moment.
3. Installation
Findings from the research serve as a base for a spatial installation that explores the spatial and social realities along the Belarus-Latvia border. Consisting of various elements, each is dedicated to a different facet - humanitarian crisis, the divided community, militarisation and borderland identity - together they will form a narrative about the borderland.
Window of Piedruja-Druja, Pakd gallery, Berlin, 2025
The curved, wooden window - a distinct element of the region’s vernacular architecture, rooted in Old Believer craftsmanship. These windows were decorated with carvings of animals, plants, and symbols, believed to protect homes from evil spirits. This window serves as a portal to the village’s past, revealing archival photos of absent experiences and structures. What can be learned from the memories in the context of today’s division? Are they just happy memories, or a glimpse of a potential future?
4. Publications
The project explores borderland issues and stories also through text, combined with illustrations.
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In 2025, an article Stuck between politics and walls. A walk in Piedruja-Druja was published online in FOLD.
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An essay Piedruja-Druja accompanied by a series of drawings, was published in Latvijas Architektūra
(print issue, August 2025).
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An article Lives Fragmented and Pushed Back at the Latvian Border accompanied by a series of drawings, was published in on Failed Architecture platform in June 2026.
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