Studio Kapsēde

Over the past eleven years I’ve created much of my personal work in Latvia. The pictures in this selection were made during 2012–13. The Studio Kapsēde series started life in Kapsēde village, near the harbour city of Liepāja. After my mother-in-law passed away, we realised that her place was filled with things. Something had to be done.

So, I started photographing them – I turned her living room into a natural light studio. All her life she had worked as a camera operator and linen custodian at the village school. After photographing her worldly goods I rebuilt my studio in the physics classroom at the school. Soon other villagers started offering their treasures for me to photograph. After a while Studio Kapsēde moved on, first to Liepāja and then to Rīga. Now I am unable to stop.

Henrik Duncker (1963) is a Helsinki-based photographer and artist. Through the 1980s he concentrated on music and architectural drawing before adopting an interest in photography. He graduated from the University of Art and Design Helsinki (nowadays Aalto University) with an MA degree in 1993. His works are housed in KIASMA Helsinki, Moderna Museet of Stockholm, and the Finnish Museum of Photography, among others.