In the bath house

My creative process is informed by the research of various texts and literary sources, unveiling stories exploring different forms of attachment and sexuality. When coming to terms with my own homosexuality, the discovery of historical accounts became a form of self-therapy – of accepting it and proving to myself that it has always been around.

Homoerotic poetry of the Islamic Golden age was at the centre of one of my most comprehensive projects to date. Focusing on three poems by Persian and Arabic poets that illustrate three forms of love – attachment, desire and sex – I produced a series of zines, a sculpture, an essay and editioned prints. The photo series In the Bath-house (2019) was inspired by a poem of the same title, composed by a classical Arabic poet Abu Nuwas. This series reflected on the place where “the mysteries hidden by trousers are revealed to you”; an important space in the life, culture and consciousness of many homosexual men to this day. I don’t aim to produce historical accounts, but rather to question our preconceptions through an insight into social histories.

Most recently I turned to the scarcely explored and documented LGBT+ histories of my home country Latvia by starting the Black Carnation project. The project’s title is a reference to the name for homosexual men used in interwar Latvia and to the so-called Black Carnation Club Case – the first and only criminal case in interwar Latvia where several men were accused of pederasty (homosexuality). It revolved around a house – a meeting place for men seeking other men – that stood in Riga’s Old Town, where in winter 2021 I opened Grindr, one of the most popular dating platforms for the black carnations of today. Similar to the way in which the app asks users to fill a form with information about themselves, I too posed a short questionnaire – what is their notion of happiness, what their fears are…

While the first part of the project celebrated the black carnations of today, the aim of the second part is to investigate the history. With contributions by the historian Ineta Lipša and the poet Kārlis Vērdiņš, Black Carnation Part 2 introduces the issues that defined the life of LGBT+ people for the most of 20^th century – medicine, law and their survival mechanisms. Scans of the popular Soviet book on sexuality, advising to treat homosexuality with hypnotherapy, cover the gallery windows. The tables are lined with simulated evidence photography of the objects collected on cruising beaches near Riga, and public bathroom tiles are covered with the messages left by strangers. These photographs and objects act as a testimony to the black carnations, to the subculture whose laws and codes were passed by word of mouth and its undocumented history faded with people.

After establishing the main themes, the aim for the upcoming parts of the project (wip) is to focus on the details and explore deeper the specific concepts, phenomena and the medium of the work.