This installation was made in collaboration with anthropologist Anna Elizabete Griķe for the international group exhibition "Decolonial ecologies, understanding postcolonial after socialism" that was curated by Ieva Astahovska and organised by Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA). Through the belonging and notes remaining after passing of Anna's grandparents we have built a space for rethinking life of "ordinary citizens" in the troubled decade of 1990ties.
Text from the exhibition brochure: For the generation that was no longer able to reorient their working life but had not yet reached retirement age, the harshness of life after gaining independence hit hard. In the 1990s, these “little (redundant?) people” were left with little choice than to feel bitter about the political and economic crisis and shut down. Poverty was accompanied by alcoholism, and the content available on television screens had an almost hypnotic effect. As time passed, a nostalgia grew that the best things in life were behind them. The habits of a generation born during the Second World War — tending allotment gardens, hoarding, and handwritten notes on both domestic and social moods — have now been replaced by eco shops, thoughtful consumption on the free market, and Twitter. When these people pass away, relatives have to deal with the accumulation of many years of belongings, few of which have any practical or emotional value. The things left behind reveal that their value lay in the very process of being taken care of, and their volume is a life-long diary in which nothing was swept away into nothingness, not even the not easy episodes of life.
Short video interview about the work with Anna and Vika.
Installation images by Madara Kuplā, Kristīne Madjare and Vika Eksta.