Story: Anna-Kaisa, photos by Albert van Zyl
It’s been almost a week since we returned from the remote location of Island CQ 2012, in Irbene, Latvia, so its time to start sharing a few experiences!

On our first full day, we were allowed to freely roam around the premises of the RT-32 Satellite, and the abandoned former soviet military town that surrounded it. We were told to keep in mind four key words: Privacy, Transparency, Control, and Power.  Later in the evening we would all give a small presentation about what we had found.

In the evening when we gathered at our Mickelbaka camping site, it was great to see the variety in what people found and presented.
Some had collected artifacts from the apartment buildings, including medical records and  x-rays, which explored the keywords Privacy and Transparency. While others presented their material in photographs, videos, and even a short stop-motion animation. It was interesting to see the ways the keywords were interpreted in different ways. Some focused on Power, from a institutional point of view, while others looked at the power of decay, and the power of nature, which was apparent in the ruins of the old buildings, and the way nature was slowly taking over.

Here are a few photographs from the evenings presentations, and if you want to learn more about the trip go check out the Island CQ website, or stay tuned for more blog posts here.






Anna-Kaisa and Albert are students of our international Degree Programme in Media
Read more about the IMPs, the Media students