Inta Ruka

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.

Inta Ruka (b. 1958, Riga) began photographing at a young age without formal training, driven by a strong curiosity about the people around her. The camera became her way of encountering the world. Her working method is slow, using a classic Rolleiflex on a tripod and available light as her only aid. Ruka’s photographs are not romanticised, but direct, intimate and respectful.

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.

The series Amālijas iela 5a (Amālija Street 5a) is a long-term portrait of an apartment building in Riga, located only minutes from the city centre yet forming a small universe of its own. Ruka’s camera followed the building’s residents between 2004 and 2008 – around one hundred people from different generations, Latvians and Russians whose daily lives unfolded at the same address.

The environment appears frozen in time: gravel roads, modest rooms, and a calm atmosphere remain in the middle of the city. Ruka became part of the residents’ lives – more a friend than an observer. The series consists mainly of intimate portraits, but also of small events and fleeting moments that together create a picture of a home as it was lived.

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

The exhibition is curated by Jessica Jarl, Global Director of Exhibitions at Fotografiska, and Maarja Loorents, Head of Exhibitions at Fotografiska Tallinn. The exhibition premieres at Fotografiska Tallinn.