Archive 2016

‘Short Stories’ is a photographic series that explores the intersections of technological progress, Western societies, and everyday neighborhood life. The series explores the tension between technological progress, nature, and daily life, drawing on environmental science fiction. One of the stories, ‘The Wooden Spaceships,’ was created in one of Denmark’s oldest oak plantations, dating back to the 1700s just a few miles outside Viborg.

The work of Daniele Sambo often seeks a direct exchange of knowledge and dialogue, with processes that explore how art interacts with and engages communities. His practice looks at the links between monumental and functional qualities of objects in the public sphere, with a specific focus on the ways in which nature brings people together.

‘Days of Night – Nights of Day’ portrays daily life in Norilsk, a remote Arctic mining city in northern Russia. Home to 177,000 residents, it is the world’s second-largest city within the Arctic Circle. Norilsk endures polar nights, long winters, and temperatures that can plunge below –50°C. It is also one of the ten most polluted cities in the world: life expectancy is a decade shorter than elsewhere in Russia, and nearly two million tons of gas are released into the atmosphere each year.

Beyond its environmental burden, Norilsk also carries the weight of its history. Founded in 1935 as a Soviet Gulag, the city was built by the forced labor of some 500,000 prisoners who endured extreme cold, starvation, and suffering.

Chernyshova’s series turns its gaze on this isolated community, acknowledging its dark past and harsh present while highlighting the resilience, adaptation, and everyday rhythms of life under extraordinary conditions.

‘Estate’ is a photographic series while also being an exercise in the photographic process itself. Andreas Olsen’s came into possession of a series of negatives which appeared to be a Danish family on holiday at some point around WWII. While he was on holiday in northern Italy, Olsen put the negatives to use, as he attempted to bring the past and present together in a single image.

By shooting the negatives on slide film and then enlarging this positive in the darkroom, the resulting picture is in negative of real life. The sky becoming dark, shadows becoming highlights, creating a somewhat classical aesthetic. But the negative in the image is also reversed, resulting in a positive image. Showing the present as reversed and in a way nullified,  the past returns to the forefront, becoming the focus. There is zero digital manipulation of the images. 

‘Voices from the Cold’ explores ‘Orpigaq’ an orphanage for young Greenlanders in the valley of ‘Kangerlussuaq’, these young people all through life have been let down by those who were supposed to protect them. Perpetuating a circle of crime, drugs, self-harm, violence and sexual abuse. They are young people who our society has failed, the orphanage their last hope and often the last stop before jail. 

In the portrait series you meet ‘Louis, Krisitian, Nuunu, Suulut, Inuuteq and Aima. Each of them are presented with their own portrait and asked what they think when they look at themselves. This project is to bring light to the conditions of vulnerable children in greenland.