During the residency at VARES in September 2024, we had a chance to research material occultism(s) and magical thinking in building practices, which led us from dowsing to wells, to snail towers, to Rotermann in Tallinn (supposedly there is a copper rod built around the perimeter of the territory), to water leaks, to hangers, to ghosting, to national romanticism, to Zaiga Gaile, to ghosting again, to group MĀJA (eng. the HOUSE) to eye patches and to face masks while returning back to VARES again, a school turned into a residency built in 1936. 

From 1989 to 1991, in the time of national awakening, a group of six architects from Latvia, MĀJA or the HOUSE, started to search for the ideal Latvian housing archetype in the cosmic scale coordinate system. They were actively leaning towards the ideology of national conservatism in the framework of being preoccupied with the reconstruction of what they called traditional Latvian homestead. The group manifested the return of a tired individual to the 'architecture of silence'. In 1991, MĀJA organised performance sequences grounded in the centre searching mythologies. In the archival materials, they call it 'center finding operation' and it includes five parts: passing the territory along the perimeter, center acquisition operation, sacrifice to the center, placement of sacred values, and a prayer. In the group’s manifesto, they write – 'According to the laws of world harmony, an ordered space must return to the people to an ordered home. The almost lost sense of space must be returned to a person. An organised space is the most favorable energy situation for living'. 

The construction of calm corners starts with a centre. A house finds the right place, and grows into being a centre in itself. We are dreaming of an escape from the crowds worn out by hustle dynamics and kept alive by neoliberalised tired body self-care routines — from grounding exercises to revitalizing gel masks — patching up the cracks between pampering and the endless to-do lists of far too many projects. Can you find a center within yourself? Or should we flee to Milos for a quick holiday instead? What kinds of remedies are they looking for? How is the state of magical thinking connected to times of uncertainty, and how can materials be released from the heavy burden of ‘hostile energy’ without people fleeing? 

The floor is lava. Did you check the water stopped running?