Subjective Translation
Entries from the Latvian Museum of Photography’s card catalogue serve as a point of departure for a personal visual exploration. Through a series of self-portraits, archival descriptions are reinterpreted subjectively, challenging the notion of photography as a fixed or objective medium. Subjectivity — expressed through form and material — transforms the documentary into an intimate, reflective experience.
Blurring the lines between perception and memory, the images oscillate between introspection and deconstruction. Photography emerges not as a neutral record, but as a mutable narrative — fragmented, unstable, and open to reinterpretation.
Digitally captured visuals are transferred onto metal plates using a photo transfer process that preserves the material traces and imperfections of paper. These remnants evoke the gaps and losses inherent in archival structures. Paper becomes a metaphor for what endures from the past: flawed, indirect, yet still meaningful.
The work poses questions about how memory is shaped, which stories are preserved, and when they begin to shift — transformed through the act of interpretation. The archive is no longer static but activated through subjective engagement.
Created as part of the ISSP School Graduation group exhibition “Pārnese” (Latvia, 2025), the series invites viewers to see the archive as a living, evolving space of meaning.