Alnis Stakle (1975, Latvia) is Latvian photographer, board member of Riga Photomonth, and a professor of photography at the Rigas Stradins University (LV). He holds a PhD in art education from Daugavpils University (LV). Since 1998, his works has been exhibited widely, including solo and group exhibitions at the Latvian Museum of Photography, Latvian National Museum of Art, Modern Art Oxford (GB), Art Center ‘Winzavod’ in Moscow (RU), Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Buenos Aires (AR), Centre for Fine Arts BOZAR in Brussells (BE), and private and public collections. His works has been published in British Journal of Photography, Wired, Camera Austria, EYEMAZING, IMAGO, OjodePez, Archivo, and Leica Fotografie International.
Neither Horse nor Tiger
How to tell a story about a place that only exists in your fantasy? It seems as if everything there resembles any other place – remote high-rise districts, cheap beer in suburban bistros, parents with kids in the park, youngsters having picnics on the beach on warm spring nights, and the city, as ever, ends with a gravel path and a dusty brush. And yet, everything out there is a little different.
I am interested in the ways people identify themselves with a particular place or situation, in the rituals that serve to establish social connections and in the borderline between the private and the collective. My photos are about China, about stereotypical perceptions of otherness and about the casualties that frame the life’s journey of each and every person. In this story, a photo film x-rayed in an airport and a broken camera shutter seem to blend in naturally.
All works are archival pigment ink prints on rag paper, sizes variable (ed 5+2AP)
Works created in China from 2013 – 2017
To view more of Alnis Stakle’s work please visit his website.