Ance Janevica

"Convoluted Landscapes” is a research project that explores entangled histories and spatial memories. It is an investigation of using LiDAR and photogrammetry technology to reveal hidden histories of geo-cultures by creating virtual experiences and proposing experimental methods of preserving landscapes. 

I believe the essence of cultural identities can be found in landscapes inhabited by societies. Due to globalization and migration, the identities of rural areas are in an uncanny state of change without a clear direction. Historically the Baltic countries have been under constant change in political regimes and changing ideologies toward preserving cultural values, especially during the Soviet occupation. 

“As collectivization set in across Latvia's countryside after the Second World War, the landscape was changed utterly. About 100,000 traditional homesteads (viensētas) were demolished. Forced into a kolkhoz, or collective farms, by the Soviets, Latvians abandoned their traditional way of life in what was one of the people's most traumatizing experiences of the 20th century.”

Mārtiņš Ķibilds

The project is dedicated to my grandparent's generation, a generation born during the war and whose independence was taken away. I believe that my generation, the first generation born after the Soviet occupation, holds a responsibility to record, collect and preserve stories and artefacts that are in danger of extinction due to migration and sociopolitical.

The current invasion in Ukraine puts a new perspective on the importance of preserving cultural heritage and identities and sharing narratives that have been marginalised and overlooked.

Collecting landscapes leads to preserving them while the environments are in constant change. It creates the possibility of remembering more than our own timescale and the possibility of questioning the past and future. We are in need of reflection to enable us to evolve as a society and in communities.