Tina Remiz
The Place Where I am Not
The Place Where I am Not Tina Remiz
From the author:
This body of work is a personal exploring the dramatic changes that took place in my home country over the past three years.
After joining the EU in 2004, Latvia had the fastest growing economy in Europe. However, heavily hit by recession in 2008, the country now is only leading the charge with one of the highest rates of unemployment in the area.
The shift left a dramatic imprint on every sphere of life, with major institutions facing closure, hospitals and schools undergoing fundamental restructurings, thousands of people are left with no steady source of income and no certainty for what the following day may bring. My work is a document of different responses to the situation Latvians found themselves in. On a more personal level, I explore the issues of migration and cultural identity, challenging the notion of the word “home“. Telling the story from perspective of a young European who left the country of her origins in search for a better life overseas, I am not fully an outsider, nor insider. Instead of documenting the town that used to be my home, I capture the experience of returning to the place where I no longer am. Tina Remiz
2011
What is home? Is that the place with address that you scribble in the right-hand side corner of a postcard, sending love from the remote corners of the world?
Is home the place where you are always welcomed, but somehow never go back to?
Home is the place that you know about more than the eye can see.
Home is the place that you belong to even without being present.