Photo: Anne G Henriksen
A camera gave a shy boy the courage to meet the world.
He has been meeting it ever since.
I am a Norwegian visual artist working with photography, film and material-based installations.
For more than three decades my work has explored the relationship between humanity, nature and history. Photography has always been my point of departure, but rarely the final destination. Every project begins with a question rather than an answer.
I believe curiosity is a form of care.
I do not approach people because I need a photograph.
I photograph because I want to understand.
This way of working has taken me from humanitarian assignments in conflict zones to long-term artistic projects exploring the traces people leave behind — in landscapes, in memory and in each other.
Whether I photograph survivors of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, the landscape after the 22 July attacks in Norway, abandoned flowers from my father’s herbarium or people finding freedom in nature, I keep returning to the same questions.
How do we continue after experiences that change us?
What remains when time has passed?
Where does hope begin?
My projects often develop over many years.
They grow through conversations, trust and careful observation.
Photography is where they begin.
Sometimes they become films.
Sometimes installations.
Sometimes they evolve through handmade Japanese paper, steel, aluminium, ceramics, sound or tactile surfaces.
The material is never separate from the image.
It becomes part of the story.
During the past years, nature has become one of my closest collaborators.
After documenting war and humanitarian crises for many years, it was nature that slowly restored my faith in people. Today I see no real boundary between humanity and nature. We shape one another.
Sharing the work has become just as important as creating it. Through exhibitions, artist talks, workshops and productions for Den kulturelle skolesekken, I continue the same artistic investigation together with children, students and audiences. These encounters are not separate from my practice. They are part of it.
I hope my work invites people to slow down.
To look a little closer.
To listen a little longer.
Not necessarily to leave with answers.
But perhaps with better questions.
I still get excited when I pick up an old camera.
I hope I never lose that feeling.
Because I have a feeling that curious boy is still the most important artist I have.
Photo: Inger Sandberg
Selected Awards
Some of my clients:
