Healthy Distrust

Latvia, August 2004

Distrust 1Lettland - Latvia, 2004 Distrust 2Lettland - Latvia, 2004

The Zeitperle space is normally designated for single photographs showing special moments, but today there´s an exception showing two pictures. In 2004 I travelled to Latvia with my kids Lenni and Lina. As we travelled through the country and discovered many interesting things for kids (we experienced Latvia as being a very child-friendly society), there were two occasions when Lenni and Lina didn´t quite know what to make of the figures they met.

To the left is the King of the Forest who resided on a platform in the middle of the woods. There was a small eco based theme park with dwarf figures of the forest and their small houses, mills and sheds close-by, where the children could climb and play around. There was even a small ore mine train with dump cars that ran on a track (all made of local wood just as the king figure). I told the kids the local story of the Forest King which I don´t remember anymore, but Lenni was quite impressed with it and never took his eyes off the huge figure, he didn´t even want to lean against it for this picture, let alone look into the camera for just a moment.

A similar situation took place in Riga, where a piece of public art stood on a square. A thinker man sat on top of a four-stair box and it was difficult to see wether the man was a real pantomime type of joker or just a like-life wax figure. I remember leaving it to the kids imagination which version they chose, but Lina fixed her eyes on him never trusting the thinker and expecting a movement at any moment.

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