Inta Ruka “Places called home”

Between 1983 and 2008, photographer Inta Ruka photographed people in her native Latvia, capturing their lives in rooms, courtyards, and streets where everyday life unfolds. She returned to the same individuals repeatedly, working slowly and allowing trust to develop over time. The resulting photographs are not merely documentary, but preserve places, relationships, and lived experience from which a sense of belonging emerges.

The exhibition Places Called Home brings together over 80 photographs from two series that create a quiet yet powerful narrative of Latvia in transition and of the people who call these places home. The series My Country People was created over the course of two decades in Balvi, a rural region of Latvia near the Russian border and the hometown of Ruka’s mother. Ruka began visiting the area in the early 1980s and gradually became acquainted with the villagers, returning to them again and again over the years. The photographs portray people who lived through war, occupation, and sweeping social changes – their faces reflecting memories of a complex history, as well as pride, dignity and everyday resilience. The images capture homes and living environments without electricity, and a way of life that was already disappearing. With this series, Ruka represented Latvia at the 1999 Venice Biennale.

Today, Inta Ruka is an internationally recognised photographer who has held numerous exhibitions across Europe, and whose works are included in several international collections.