Exhibition. Galleri CFF
Close Reading: Country Beside Itself
Konstfack fokusgrupp i fotografi: Anita Honart, Bengt Rahm, Sofia Runarsdotter, Alexander Bäckman, Alma Bons
20200616 - 20200616
The Konstfack’s photography focus group is exhibiting at Centrum för fotografi as part of a research project based on Lars Tunbjörk’s photographic archive. Over two semesters, the students have made various close readings of Tunbjörk’s method by studying contact sheets from some of his most famous works in the Country Beside Itself suite.
Lars Tunbjörk’s significance to the photographic image cannot be overstated. His work is celebrated and admired both in Sweden and internationally. Country Beside Itself depicts a crucial economic and political societal transformation that manifested itself visually, including as an explosion of color and plastic, where the photographer assumes the function of a membrane between external and internal circumstances. What does this process look like, and is there an optical unconscious in his images that can be recognized and analyzed? What can we behold from our historical horizon when we read his images today? The students have closely read Tunbjörk’s images and reacted artistically based on their own practice. The project has been ongoing for two semesters and has materialized in a variety of expressions such as rephotography, montage, cartography, and painting.
The project is a collaboration with the Lars Tunbjörk Foundation.
