Vika Eksta

Vika Eksta is a visual artist based in Latvia. Studied at Latvian Art Academy and EFTI photography school (Spain). Working on the border between documentary and fictional image creation. Practising archival research.

Dievs Daba Darbs (God Nature Toil)  

A trilogy written by a Latvian female author Anna Brigadere in early 1900s as a quite sentimental examination of life of the Latvian peasants narrated by a young daughter of rural servants. For centuries Latvian families lived in the individual farmsteads in the countryside and notions of nature, work and religion determined their life. I have reevaluated and reframed the image of traditional lifestyle and it’s contemporary state characterized by migration, devastation, aging of the population, emptiness etc. by re-enacting life of a country woman who passed away some years ago. Her children emigrated and house with all belongings turned into an archive of private memories that was found by accident. I have spent a lot of time alone in this house reliving situations offered by the clothes and objects located there. For shooting I used only available material (clothes, objects and light etc.), 6×6 analogue camera with cable release or self – timer.

Truth Lies Not in One Dream, But in Many Dreams (Thousand and One Nights)
Moving Photography

This is my personal project where I am experimenting with creation of animated gifs. The gifs that I create have a strong link with the photographic imagery tradition and that is why I call them moving photographs. Some of them have been exhibited this year in the Circulations festival in Paris and in Riga Photography Biennial. The images are registration of the repetitive quotidian actions where I am exploring roles that I am playing or could play if at some point of my life would make a different choice. To see the animated version you have to click on the image.

Sloboda

A series of poetic documentary photographs that I am taking in the village where my father comes from. In ancient Russian “Sloboda“ means “free settlement“. I am exploring the pass of time, life cycle of objects and animals and my own relationship with my family and this land. Poetics of these images is influenced by a Russian lyrical poet Sergey Jessenin.