Room No.13
Reinis Hofmanis
Before, it was the landscape in which human influence and inflicted wrongs could be felt. In recent years, it is the interior – a space created and affected by man. When functional and aesthetic thinking meet, the space evolves over time and becomes adapted to new functions and new living standards. Layers of wires, pipes, insulation and ceiling fixtures are squeezed into spaces where they have never existed before. The architecture of the space and the placement of a utility infrastructure may even seem absurd, but there is an internal logic and a unique aesthetic to it.
Reinis Hofmanis (b. 1985) is a Riga-based artist and photographer. He studied photography at the University of Applied Sciences and Arts in Hannover, Germany, and obtained an MA from the Visual Communication Department of the Art Academy of Latvia. His works are characterised by a socio-anthropological point of view – which manifests in an interest in typifying different groups of society, their behavioural pattern, and tier effect on the surrounding environment. Hofmanis won the main prize at Archifoto in 2012 and 2013, and was awarded 2nd place in the Architecture category of the Sony World Photography Awards. His works have been featured in publications such as The New York Times, Financial Times, Der Spiegel, Esquire, Bloomberg, Le Monde, The Globe and Mail, and The British Journal of Photography