The exhibition My Friends brings together Māra Brašmane's first photographs, shot between 1965 and 1969 with her father's large format Woigtländer camera. The black-and-white images show bohemians, artists and writers in a free, relaxed atmosphere – students who, over the following decades, would grow into the new generation of Riga intellectuals. But at this point, Laima Eglīte, Eižens Valpēters, Eva Gurviča, Juris Pudāns and others are still talking about their future dreams in the cafes Kaza and Putnu Dārzs, expressing their feelings, problems and search for self as young people.

Māra Brašmane wanted to document life as it was, Riga through the eyes of a young person, contrary to the demands of Soviet ideology. Biographical notes often mention that Māra Brašmane has been making photographs since 1969, when she joined Riga Photo Club. The reason for this is because the photographs in the exhibition My Friends were seen simply as studies, first attempts on the path towards freezing the world in time. Māra Brašmane did not intend these photographs for exhibition. This is where the power of these works lies – they were not taken with a trace of obligation towards a specific project, they were not intended for the eyes of others, the motivation for their creation was not thirst for recognition, artistic ambition or a commission from an institution. Māra Brašmane simply photographed what she found important and interesting, keeping it as her own personal memory archive of the sensations and experience possible only in that specific time and place.

"Every day you go to work, to school, you meet friends, have conversations at home – that is Riga how it actually was. At the end of the day, what use is a two-page label under the work if the work doesn't appeal to you? It either has that mood, or it doesn't," opines the photographer.

Participant: Māra Brašmane (LV)
Curator and text author: Kristians Fukss (LV)

Image: Māra Brašmane, 'Self-Portrait', 1965