Sophie Thun Interprets Zenta Dzividzinskas Negatives: A Case Study of Exploring and Re-evaluation of a Private Photo Archive

Based on a case study of the private archive and estate of Zenta Dzividzinska, a Latvian artist and photographer active locally and internationally in the 1960s, the article highlights some of the difficulties of preserving forms of cultural heritage that so far have eluded the attention of both the professional art world and official memory institutions. Curator Zane Onckule envisioned a new model of collaboration between the estate of a deceased artist, the practice of a contemporary artist, and the labor of an archivist. The unusual vision resulted in the solo show of Austrian contemporary artist Sophie Thun, “I Don’t Remember a Thing: Entering the Elusive Estate of ZDZ” at the Kim? Contemporary Art Center in Riga, Latvia (July 15 to September 12, 2021). Onckule invited Thun to exhibit her own work as well as to study Dzividzinska’s archive. During the exhibition, Thun discovered Dzividzinska’s negatives and printed new images from them onsite. Thun referred to her practice as interpreting Dzividzinska’s work. Archivist Līga Goldberga opened the boxes where the family had kept Dzividzinska’s archive, described their contents, and helped Thun with the selection of negatives. Departing from the concepts of kinship, collaboration, and affective labor, Onckule, Thun, and Goldberga engaged with Dzividzinska’s archive to create an evolving space for a caring conversation. By physically bringing her archive into the gallery, the exhibition attempted to reverse the history that too often had overlooked and forgotten women photographers’ work. By centering the project around darkroom work, usually the most invisible part of photographer’s labor, the exhibition challenged the cultural status of that labor and encouraged a broader re-evaluation of Dzividzinska’s oeuvre. After the exhibition, part of Dzividzinska’s archive found a permanent home at the Latvian National Library.