Collective amnesia: a photographer from Latvia dramatized the Soviet past

Arnis Balcus is a photographer, teacher and editor-in-chief of the Latvian online publication FK Magazine. He studied communications at the University of Latvia and photography at the University of Westminster in London. His photographs have been exhibited at numerous international photography exhibitions and published in prominent European publications such as Achtung Mode, Dazed & Confused, Foto & Video. Most of his photos are devoted to Latvian identity, historical taboos and socio-political topics.

In a series of works called “Amnesia,” the author dramatizes scenes from everyday life that have sunk into oblivion due to a change in the socio-political situation. The scenes in the photographs presented demonstrate the way of life of Latvians and residents of other former Soviet republics that have become history. Collective amnesia - the forced or voluntary suppression of individual memories - contributed to the fact that all these daily little "rituals" disappeared into oblivion, thanks to the widespread denial of Latvian Soviet identity and partly to make it easier to recover from endlessly repeated political-economic failures.