Following the successful exhibition at Magazin, Vienna in spring 2024 the architectural practice ĒTER brings a Pop-up NAIL SALON to Riga. Obsession with the sensory, imaginative physical world, alongside complete, evolving prototypes of public spaces is taking the form of a Nail Salon at Riga's contemporary art gallery ASNI.

Contemporary nail art and salon culture becomes a portal for jumping scales, directly connecting the human body to a world of sensory and haptic materials. The installation is set out to explore the phenomenon of well-being juxtaposed with fragments of architectural practice. The exhibition is a fraction of an ongoing search for clues to a new-or-perhaps-forgotten-kind of awareness of the built environment and a desire for profound togetherness.    

Silent retreats, autogenic training, ASMR, breathing techniques, digital detox, embracing the joy of missing out (JOMO instead of FOMO) - to name a few spatial practices of self-medication against stress, anxiety, loneliness and insomnia. The exhibition integrates 1:1 scale furniture prototypes, material experiments, architectural models, videos and photography in a democratic social space, open towards these domains. 

ĒTER is a partnership of Kārlis Bērziņš, Dagnija Smilga and Niklāvs Paegle – architects, researchers and educators operating between Alps and Baltic coastline. Shortlisted by Dezeen.com as one of the 29 emerging practices in the world in 2022, and selected by Platformarchitecture.it for Europe's “40 under 40” young architects, ĒTER is focused on creating unique environments at the intersection of nature, technology and contemporary culture. In 2022, Daycare center "Pērle" received the Grand Prix of Latvian Architecture Award and EUmies award nomination, while Weird Sensation Feels Good: The World of ASMR at the London Design Museum won the Dezeen Award for best exhibition architecture. The origins of the practice stem from the jointly created Baltic Pavilion at the 2016 Venice Architecture Biennale, for the first time in history representing Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania in a single exhibition.