In 2012, Iveta Vaivode(1979) went to her grandmother Antoņina’s village, Pilcene, in the Latgale region of Latvia. She was searching for the mythical place she imagined when looking through photographs of her grandmother’s youth. “For the most part, our lives aren’t connected anymore to one special place, a physical strip of land or old house our grandparents built. The ability to travel from one side of the world to the other, dynamically changing places of residence, and often travelling virtually as well as physically, has made our identities both more blurred and more unified. Getting to know the people of Pilcene, I had an odd feeling. Although they were strangers to me, I recognized something very familiar, but forgotten in them – the women of my family. Especially when Anna quietly asked me to listen to the singing of the … Read More »

The exhibition of works by Mary Ellen Mark (1940, USA) presents a classic documentary photography tradition in which photojournalism and subjective documentary align to and overlap each other. Her best-known series focus on socially vulnerable groups of people.

In terms of plots and themes, Mark’s works hint at the socio-critical perspective of her idol, William Eugene Smith. Formally, the works follow in the footsteps of Henri Cartier-Bresson and the principles of his decisive moment, in which it is easy to spot traces of a traditional art education – Mark studied painting, art history and photojournalism at the University of Pennsylvania.

Professionally, she has been working as a photographer since the mid-1960s, and has been publishing books since 1974 about cultural differences, the homeless, the ill and other fate-stricken people. Mark has collaborated with New York Times Magazine, Life, Paris-Match, The New Yorker, … Read More »

The Riga 2014 event “Riga Self/portraits” offers a portrait of contemporary Riga through the eyes of its residents and artists. Hundreds of Rigans from various neighbourhoods have created self-portraits for the exhibition, while local and international artists present new portrait series and multimedia work.
Participating artists: Marcos Lopez (AR), Iveta Vaivode, Andris Kozlovskis, Andrejs Strokins, Kaspars Goba, Aija Bley (LV), Vesa Aaltonen (FI), Vincen Beeckman (BE), Eva Voutsaki (GR/UK), Bahbak Hashemi-Nezhad (UK).

More about the project – http://rigaselfportraits.com

In 2011, the photographer Iveta Vaivode travelled east from her home in Riga, Latvia, to Pilcene, her family’s ancestral village. Although only one living relative remained in the tiny settlement, Vaivode found it strangely familiar. “Expressions, movements, even ways of thinking. I already knew so much of it, because I could see it in my mother and grandmother,” she said.

Vaivode returned to the village for each of the next three years, taking photographs for a series that she called “Somewhere on a Disappearing Path.” The project, which was recently awarded a prize by Duke University’s Center for Documentary Studies, began as a family album but, over time, became an imaginative record of a disappearing community. (Many of the young people in Pilcene have left to find work in Western Europe; a disproportionate number of children and elderly remain.) Alexa Dilworth, … Read More »

“Abroad. Case 2” in the The Mūkusala Art Salon presented works of Latvian art photographers, that have been created in the same geographical area as the artists of the earlier periods.

The works of classics of Latvian photography Egons Spuris and Jānis Kreicbergs will trace the specific role of reportage as source of visual information in the Soviet period. The photo series of new Latvian artists Ieva Epnere, Ivars Grāvlejs, Reinis Hofmanis and Alnis Stakle – socially critical and anthropological investigations of landscape and environment – will outline the various approaches of contemporary art.

Almost whole exhibition room was made by fineArtPrint.lv, except of Ivars Grāvlejs who had a video installation.

Exhibition specs

• Ieva Epnere – luster type photo paper, shallow L-box moulding, honey-tone stained ash tree, mounted on 3mm dibond • Reinis Hofmanis – Epson Hot Press Natural paper, GroGlass non-reflective … Read More »

The central event of Riga Photo Month – an exhibition featuring the work of Baltic and Nordic artists with a focus on finding their place in the contemporary space that surrounds us. At the same time, the show examines current trends in photography as an art practice.

The exhibition, showcasing artists from the Nordic and Baltic countries, focuses on people searching for their place in the contemporary space that surrounds us – the interaction between private and public, local and global, mental and physical.

The modern economy, and its process of constant growth, urbanization and globalization increasingly call for more self-awareness, balance and a return to core values. Private space becomes more important.

Ourselves and contemporary space – place. Who are we and how do we see ourselves in the space around us? How is our interaction with the space we call … Read More »