A three and a half hour busride took us from Riga through a snowy landscape to Karosta. Used to smooth roads, I experienced to be shaked around, while my head was still recovering from a heavy headache which had struck me for the last couple of days. As we left around 4 o'clock in the afternoon, there wasn't so much daylight left and through the unclear windows some lights popped up once in a while, either from a house decorated by christmas lights, or a truck which blasted by. Once we arrived in Liepaja, the busdriver hurried us to get out and while Derek tried to make a phonecall, I watched our baggage in a little kafenica, nearby the station. A lady was energitically cleaning the floor, her head bent down as if she might forget an unclean spot, while suddenly a man pointed his finger to his watch and loudly explained to me that it was time to go. As I didn't understand a word, but understood the watch-sign, I picked up all my baggage -that means all I could carry- and stepped out the door. Before I could go inside again to get the heaviest package, the man already came outside with the rest of the luggage and started walking. Without a second try in Latvian communication, I soundlessly followed the guy and ended up in the station. The guy left, without saying a word.

This is the second time I'm in Karosta. One and a half years ago, when we were on our way to Venspils, I stayed here for one night. I remembered walking around in this part of town, gave me a little bit of an unheimisch feeling; being somewhere were I wasn't allowed to openly look at the people, too aware of myself being 'the visitor' and certainly not a citizin. The chance that it was the other way around -I was being observed by them- was probably more obvious, but that thought appeared later. I also remembered the typical sight of the concrete housingblocks orderly placed in rows, the huge decorated Russian Church in the middle of it and the wide road with huge green trees on each side which takes you to the sea.

The House of the Two Admirals - the building of the culture and information center K@2 - is in my memory an old Pipi-Langkous-house (I think it's called Pipi Langstrom in English) and is located on the same road. The last time I was here, the whole house still had to be renovated and only a small part was used by Carl and Kristin, the two filmmakers who decided to start this ambitious project. When I entered the building yesterday, I could see the progress they made; central heating, several rooms equipped with audio and video-tools and the renovation of two other buildings into a gallery and a artists in residence-building which I haven't seen yet.

Although the season is different -it's winter now instead of the summertime wherein I've seen Karosta before- the ambient atmosphere is the same. Facinated by the history and the energy of this former war harbor, I'm looking forward to explore the environment. Besides giving the video-workshop, my plan is to make a visual map of Karosta. Not an abstract map of roads and streetnames, but a map which shows the layer beyond the citymap. The skin of visual details - both architectionally as (typo)graphically- and the stories which goes along with it. Together with the people who live here, we will try to capture the images and stories in the next couple of weeks, starting with a 'real map' which will help me to find my way here..

---sara

Untill we've found a way to store the video-material, I will upload some video-stills which makes it more accessible to follow the process.