Local Time
Photo exhibition
Ironic Finnish photographer Henrik Duncker is a chronicler of his time, showing the absurd, odd and paradoxical side of the environment familiar to everybody. The visitors of the gallery on Kaļķu Street will see his works from two recent projects If Nokia were a place... and Relating Latvia.
The sarcastic photo series If Nokia were a place... comes from a little Finnish village that bears the name of the globally recognisable brand= Nokia. Duncker was disappointed by the numbers of tourists in the village; he realised that these Nokias have nothing in common.
Henrik Duncker focused on Latvia due to a fortunate coincidence. He has been documenting everyday life in this country (mainly in the countryside) for five years. The textures, colours, ornaments and compositions of household items depicted in his photos seem very familiar to Latvians, although only an ‘outsider’ could truly notice those characteristics. The author also points out that the project is partly a love story because it shows his way of becoming a member of his wife’s family, his acclimatization to a different culture, environmental aesthetics and the vacuum of familiar information. Duncker takes notice of the strange and crazy parts of everyday interiors once more. However, his works indicate that he enjoys this process.
Henrik Duncker fixes moments of reality, unpretentiously showing a situation as comic, tragic, real and false at the same time.
A Survival Handbook by Henrik Duncker has been created as a part of the art project Survival Kit. The book is dedicated to people – to their interaction with environment, to their ability to adapt and to the possibility of being free, have your own way.