During the evening at Centrum för fotografi four artists will present their current work all dealing with climate change; the use and misuse of natural resources in the north and its effects on the land, people and climate. After the short presentations there will be a discussion moderated by Caroline Elgh.  

The program is a collaboration between Fotografisk Center in Copenhagen, Preus Museum in Horten, Hippolyte in Helsinki, and Centrum för fotografi in Stockholm  and is funded by Nordic Culture Point.

Participating artists: Marja Helander, Skade Henriksen, Mette Riise, Linda Maria Thompson  Moderator: Caroline Elgh 

Linda Maria Thompson is a photographer based in Sweden. In her ongoing artistic research project, “Revision and the River” she explores acts of witnessing and revision in documentary arts practice focused on storytelling places of environmental change. Specifically by focusing on the iconic Nämforsen, a river-rapid-turned-hydropower plant in Västernorrland. 

Skade Henriksen works with drawing, photography, installations and sculpture. With a background as a research technician, she uses scientific instruments and records as a working method and reference point in her works. Landscape is a recurring theme in her practice. Central to her work is the exploration of landscape, focusing on landscape change, mining and notions of time and value. Henriksen’s work encompasses projects ranging from a graphite mine on the island of Sážža/Senja in northern Norway to the ongoing controversy surrounding mining waste in Førdefjorden on the west coast of Norway, as well as her current project centered on the iron ore mine in Girkonjárga/Kirkenes.

Marja Helander is a photographer and video artist based in Finland. Helander’s recent photographic work has focused on Northern landscape. The accent of the work is on the postcolonial topics in the Sámi area, focusing particularly on the global mining industry. The encounter between nature and mankind is not harmonious, but destructive. On the other hand, her video works are playful, exploring the contradiction between the traditional Sámi way of life and the modern society.

Mette Riise is a performative video artist whose practice questions the role and responsibility of the artist in the age of the capitalocene. Through satirical institutional (self-)criticism, she creates artistic mock-ups of familiar media formats, such as the reality format or the talk show genre. Meanwhile, she delves into themes in the field between economic growth, climate collapse and the Western ‘development’ narrative, such as in the work ‘The Less Unsustainable Talk Show’.

Moderator
Caroline Elgh has a background as an art curator. Her work lays at the intersection of contemporary art, visual culture, science fiction, feminist posthumanities and environmental humanities. The academic work is focused on contemporary artistic practices and its relation to the ongoing environmental and climate crisis. Currently engaged as a PhD researcher in Gender Studies at Linköping University and Co-Director of the interdisciplinary research platform The Posthumanities Hub she researches coastal artistic practices and interactions between marine science and culture.

Centrum för fotografi has received network funding from the Nordic-Baltic Mobility Programme for Culture to establish “Nordic Neighbours Conversations Collaborations on Photography”