This week we've been looking at the work of photographer, Georgs Avetisjans, and his series 'Homeland'.
Homeland
Homeland is a multi-layered, research-based photographic series, where I’ve explored the place of my childhood and where my Armenian-Greek father once had a dream to build a house for our family. Unfortunately he couldn’t finish it as he passed away when I was only 6 months old. The project became a story about the sea, land and memory in the longest village in the country and of how time affects and changes
our sense of place.
It is constructed as an interactive narrative within a self-published book in 2016 and serves a nostalgic representation of Kaltene, the village in Latvia and also its recent history from World War II until the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 via interviews, notes and archival imagery. As the curtain fell, the local economy changed, and in 2004, upon joining the EU, it changed again.
These historical shifts made a huge impact on the society and its dreams, many of which the younger generations abandoned. My father migrated in the early 80’s from Tbilisi, Georgia to Riga, Latvia where he met my Latvian-Russian mother, at a time when both countries were still part of the Soviet Union.
One day in the early 80’s my dad and his very good friend and colleague decided to drive northwest from Riga in search of a place to build a family home. Dad had always wanted a house by the sea. Back then, as his friend once told me, they stopped at the longest village and admired the amazingly tall pine trees in the forest and huge rocks by the sea. Right away my father knew that this is where he wanted to live for the rest of his life and raise his children.
Kaltene is located between the forest and the sea around 100 km northwest of the capital Riga. In the latter half of the 19th century and early 20th century it was the second most productive village in the country. 55 seagoing sailing ships were built there.
“Landscapes – actual, remembered or idealized – feed our sense of belonging to whatever place, region or nation that we view as homeland.”
Liz Wells
Georgs Avetisjans (1985) is a photographer and visual narrator from Latvia who studied MA Photography at the University of Brighton, UK and had several exhibitions in Latvia, Italy, China, Netherlands, Slovenia and the UK.
Mostly interested in a multi-layered, research-based narrative about contemporary issues from historical
and ethnographical aspects, Avetisjans work falls on the line between reality and fiction. Working on authentic imagery in the field of documentary reality, he uses archival and vernacular photography, materials, notes and voice recordings to make his work.
Most recently, he was selected for the prestigious Magnum Photo Graduate Photographers’ Award 2017 in partnership with Photo London and RBB Economics.
For more from our showcases and how to submit, click here.
For more of Georgs work, click here.
