Devil's Lake

Devil’s Lake is a round and deep lake with and intensely green water located in the middle of a forest in the Eastern Latvia. Although various myths surround the lake, there are no records of it in the Archives of Latvian Folklore. It is possible that very few ethnographic expeditions have travelled to this region, but perhaps most of the legends about the Devil’s Lake have appeared only recently. To mention a few – lake is a meteorite crater and has a double bottom so it is not possible to measure its depth, there are electromagnetic anomalies around it and water might be radioactive, no fish and no birds live there etc.

I was born in the village located 3 kilometers away. While growing up I have witnessed how crowds of tourists started to appear bringing new opinions about the origins and qualities of this place like rumors that the gates to Shambala are in the center of the lake and might transport swimmers to the parallel dimensions. I spend a lot of time at the lake listening to people, researching its surroundings and observing the changes that are happening within its ecosystem. I do not seek to bust the myth or discover the truth, but rather to capture the peculiar magnetizing force of the Devil’s Lake and to grasp why this landscape gives birth to such wild fantasies.

In the book I plan to combine images of the surrounding landscape with the portraits of the local village men, elements of herbarium and the legends and rumors collected there. In the process of editing and creating the book I would highly benefit from the mentoring possibilities offered by the FUTURES program.