Latvia as an antidepressant

This photo series is mostly about the lives of various Riga residents in the Latgale suburb (until 2024 also officially known as the Moscow District, colloquially called “Maskačka”). It highlights the unique clash between Soviet heritage and contemporary reality, which has created a distinctive living environment.

Originally, the series consists of two parts — each containing 80 photographs taken between 2005 and 2020. I began working on this series when I was 15, while assisting my father, photographer Juris Kalniņš, in the creation of a book. The book was intended to be called Anatomy of a Street: Maskavas Street (though it was never published), and the task was to photograph every building on Maskavas Street with architectural precision. However, through this project, I realised I was far more interested in photographing the people around the buildings rather than the buildings themselves.

In the first part of the series, I included many photographs that were not taken in the Latgale suburb but whose mood and themes resonated with it. This selection for FK Magazine also includes images from Vecmīlgrāvis, Āgenskalns, Old Riga, Melluži, Kārsava, as well as from the centre of Riga — Artilērijas Street.

Arnis Kalniņš (1990) works in photojournalism and street photography, and has also created staged photography projects and short stop-motion films. He holds a bachelor’s degree in sociology and studied anthropology at the University of Copenhagen through the Erasmus exchange programme. He is currently studying cinematography at the Latvian Academy of Culture’s National Film School and is filming his graduation project The Informant — a documentary with staged scenes.