Igor Ozols

This ongoing documentary project is an exploration of my father's life - Igor Ozols, a Latvian refugee who fled the USSR in 1973 and passed away in 1999. The project is both a tribute and an attempt to uncover and understand his story and therefore, mine.

This ongoing documentary project is a personal exploration of my father's life - Igor Ozols, a Latvian refugee who fled the Soviet Union in 1973 and passed away from a heart attack in 1999. Not quite sure if it was a heart attack, some say it was a stroke. But he did leave with a broken heart.

The project, named after him, is both a tribute and an attempt to uncover and understand parts of his story and therefore, mine.

For the past year, I have been working with a vast collection of photographic archives spanning from the 1920s to the early 2000s - images that my father preserved with great care. I interweave these historical materials with my own photographs, inspired by my memories, family anecdotes, and key locations tied to his life, mainly between Latvia and Germany, where he immigrated.

Through this work, I aim to reconnect with my Latvian roots and to shed light on his life during USSR. It is a visual dialogue across time between past and present and absence and presence.