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Valts Kleins took up photographic studies in Leningrad in 1980 after studying theatre and pantomime. In 1984, he worked three years for the Culture Ministry where he coordinated activities of amateur photo groups in Latvia. In 1987 he became one of Latvia’s first independent photographers and furthered his work with a stipend from the USSR Cultural Foundation. His work has been exhibited in Japan, North America and Europe as well as Riga. In his photography, Kleins extends the limits of social documentary, often involving his subjects in an interactive way, as in his project with troubled youths.
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We Want…We Wish…Part I, 1990-92
Partial series of 260 silver prints
30 x 24 cm each
(click images for larger view) |
We Want…We Wish…Part II, 1992
installation area 0.5 x 4 m |
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INTERPRETATION
We Want... We Wish... (Part I) began as a series of over 500 photographs that Valts Kleins worked on from 1990 until 92, photographing kids who are homeless orphans or institutionalized for criminal reasons – children with no power and dim looking futures. He photographed them if they agreed to it, made the prints as black and white portraits, and gave the photos back to the children to write a message to the world expressing their wishes, goals and dreams. This work surfaces many problems that were not acknowledged by the Soviet system and at the same time it offers some possibility for these children to have power even if it’s for the moment it takes to write their message to a stranger.
In Canada he worked on a similar project with institutionalized kids in We Want... We Wish... (Part II) where he got to know several kids and similarly asked them to come to the gallery, to write their message on a door. Kleins sees the door as a metaphor for passage from inside to outside and the kids’ messages speak of hopeful transitions and futures: “My wish is to finish treatment and get back home .... I wish everyone had peace with themselves.... I wish that everybody would keep the earth in good shape .... I wish that all the people on the streets would end up in good homes.” While these kids are often marginalized, their fears and desires are typical of all people.
images on the left:
We Want…We Wish…Part I, 1990-92
Partial series of 260 silver prints
30 x 24 cm each
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