Filips Smits
Let's Get Sun-Kissed
Carrer Salvador Riera
Escape is not always far away or extraordinary: it can be woven into everyday life, within everyone’s reach and without the need to travel very far.
Rather than seeking refuge in consumerism, technology or isolation, this project explores how simple outdoor rituals (sunbathing, gathering, wandering, resting, sharing public space) become acts of liberation from the routines of contemporary urban life.
The series is inspired by the Situationist International’s ‘dérive’ – an unstructured journey through the city that frees one from prescribed patterns of movement. Each image proposes a small act of resistance, a minimal yet constant escape from alienation and social fragmentation.
Filips Smits (Latvia, 1996) is a photographer who works with analogue photography, urban interventions and conceptual approaches.
His practice explores how everyday rituals, chance encounters and the psychology of the city reveal hidden social structures.
Having been awarded the title of Best Young Latvian Photographer, he has exhibited his work at various European festivals and develops projects exploring the relationships between people, space and collective behaviour.
