The documentary evidence is exhibited combining traditional and contemporary design, with the aim of making people think about generational change and the role of grandmothers in society.
Knitting socks, reading newspapers, pickling preserves, and giving away milk to the buyer - this is the daily life of Latgale's strong grandmothers or babas. To preserve this lifestyle and highlight their value, design technology students Amanda and Liāna have created a special exhibition depicting the life of 75-year-old Valentina in the Latgalian countryside.
"I feed the cattle, I feed my grandchildren, I knit socks. I am still healthy, I am working. Amanda is a clever girl, she studies well, she is good at everything she does," says Valentīna Priževoite.
Amanda Anusāne, on the other hand, says "it seemed that my grandmother was already a person in her old age, and Covid generally ruined everyone's lives. Close people were very important, especially the elderly. Their health was important. I started to immortalize baba so that the memories would last. To document everyday life, because in a few years, it will be a historical record."
The black-and-white pictures show Valentīna celebrating with family members as well as everyday moments - caring for the farm animals.
The concept of the exhibition is also based on the farmhouse setting, combining everyday objects with contemporary elements.
"It's mostly things we took from the barn. We painted old windows, old doors. We sanded, we went to the fields, we looked for saws, wood. The photographs and the texts are also broken down, what you feel when you enter the veranda. Then there is the warm end, where there is coziness. At the cold end, we have laundry drying," says Liāna Merņaka, a student of design technology.
Visitors can also have their blood pressure checked.
"This is what our seniors do - grandmothers, grandfathers. My father, who was also a senior - he also took his blood pressure and wrote it down every day on a piece of checkered paper, so our table is checkered," says Liāna Merņaka.
According to the authors of the exhibition, Latgale baba is a vanishing value and the new, digital generation will no longer remember this phenomenon.
This is an incentive to think about your elderly relatives now and not to forget to visit, comfort, and appreciate them.
"In general, people of that age had a hard life. She is used to working, which is what she has taught me: you have to love work, you have to do work, because only then can you get results. We need to say things, to be with people when they are alive. To visit, to call," says Amanda Anusāne.
The exhibition will travel to other places in Latgale in the future.
