Andrejs Strokins

Andrejs Strokins is one of Latvia’s most successful contemporary photographers, whose works are regularly featured in international publications and who has won numerous awards. Focussing on ordinary people, their everyday lives and material relics, Strokins seeks the unusual, the strange and the inexplicable in the everyday, showing it in a different light. He collects found photographs and uses them in his work to create melancholy, ironic stories which draw attention to visual stereotypes and assumptions through which we view the past. 

The photographic series “People in the Dunes” tells the story of two towns on the outskirts of Riga – Bolderāja and Daugavgrīva – which are located across from each other on opposite sides of the Daugava River. For several years, the artist studied the boundary between the urban environment and nature, recording people he randomly met, strange situations and unusual views to highlight the exotic nature of these legendary neighbourhoods. Today, the fringes of the city do not have their own identities. Since they are places without qualities or any readymade scenarios of life, the most unexpected things can happen there. Strokins masterfully exploits the creative potential of these Riga edge lands to create his own legend about mysterious Bolderāja.

12 photographs from the series “People in the Dunes”. 2011-2016.