The Place Where I am Not is a personal documentary project exploring the dramatic changes that took place in my home country over the past three years.
After joining the EU in 2004, Latvia had the fastest growing economy in Europe. However, heavily hit by recession in 2008, the country now is only leading the charge with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the area.
The shift left a dramatic imprint on every sphere of life, with major institutions facing closure, hospitals and schools undergoing fundamental restructurings, thousands of people are left with no steady source of income and no certainty for what the following day may bring. My work is a document of different responses to the situation Latvians found themselves in.
On a more personal level, I explore the issues of migration and cultural identity, challenging the notion of the word “home“. Telling the story from perspective of a young European who left the country of her origins in search for a better life overseas, I am not fully an outsider, nor insider. Instead of documenting the town that used to be my home, I capture the experience of returning to the place where I no longer am.