Exhibition “Roadsides”

The Janis Rozentals and Rudolfs Blaumanis Museum (Riga, Alberta Street 12-9) invites you to the exhibition of photographs by Gerard and Sophia Bella Keruzes titled “Roadsides”, which will take place from July 5 to September 1. Working with analog cameras, the artists aim to be observers capturing events within the individual's living space, seeking to understand what is happening beyond the field of collective consciousness.

The photographers share about the inspiration for the exhibition and the themes explored in it: “I was born in the 1960s of the 20th century. I grew up in a society where a planned economy defined a citizen's life, and individual expression was invisibly regulated by censorship. Declaratively, citizen behavior was subject to collective thinking and action. Cartoons promoted the consciousness of a beehive. The time came, and the hive stopped functioning.

Sophia was born in the era of the New hive. No longer does one dominant narrative prevail in culture, science and religion are deconstructed and questioned, giving rise to many, sometimes conflicting theories and viewpoints. This New hive is undefined, seeking to move away from complexity, inadvertently creating greater disorder. While it may seem that there is greater individual autonomy and freedom, societal perceptions and hopes still largely govern people's lives, including the values and meanings attributed to events.

In large hives, it is easy to succumb to the crowd and follow its goal. However, each group of bee-like insects has its own number of antennas, and each individual has its peculiar drone.

Over the past two years, Sophia and I have aimed to capture events or edges where the individual's living space emerges. We strive to explore what lies beyond the hive consciousness, reflecting what we see through the images taken with analog cameras.”