"Human Baltic" features the work of 17 photographers and was created in collaboration between Baltic and Japanese organizations. It was first presented in Tokyo in the spring of 2024.

The exhibition brings together works by masters of Baltic humanist photography from 1960 to 1990, a period when life behind the Iron Curtain existed in two parallel realities.

In one of those realities, everything had to be in order – plans were fulfilled, people smiled, and slogans promised a bright future. In the other, everyday life lived on with its quiet perseverance: empty counters and queues, but also intimate joys, holidays, moments at the seaside, market days and domestic customs that did not fit into the frames of the "official image."

The photographers in this exhibition from Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania moved between those two realities.

Some broke the propagandistic illusion almost imperceptibly – through small shifts in gaze, space or silence. Others found gaps where the system that controls everything was not yet fully present, and there they preserved the person as he or she really is: fragile and defiant, strange and funny, tired and gentle. Humanism here does not mean embellishment, but closeness and honest attention to the person in his or her everyday life.

According to the exhibition's chief curator Agnė Narušytė, humanistic photography in the Baltic states reflects the joys and sufferings of humanity, just as it does elsewhere in the world.

"However, Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians had to overcome ideological obstacles if they wanted to show authentic everyday life," Narušytė said.

Many of the photographs in the exhibition invite the viewer to read between the lines. In Soviet times, that skill was essential for survival – public language and the language of images were often twofold.

Even today, in the information field, where carefully curated images and narratives compete for attention and trust, this skill is just as important: to notice whose interests the image speaks for and what is left unsaid.

"At a time when everything can be distorted, it may be beneficial to go back to a time when real life was distorted for you. 'Human Baltic' is an exhibition about a time when an honest picture was considered a form of rebellion against the system. This exhibition is a call for authenticity and for remaining human," said co-curator Toomas Järvet.

The exhibition opened on February 4 and will remain on display until April 26.

More information about the exhibition is available here.

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