Edit profile
The

Artist

Mathias Eis

Nominated in
2024
By
Copenhagen Photo Festival
Lives and Works in
Copenhagen
Mathias Eis (b. 1995) is a documentary photographer and visual storyteller, based in Copenhagen, Denmark, who specializes in long-term real-life projects that explore people’s ways of living through portraiture, reportage and landscape photography. He graduated with an BA in Photojournalism from the Danish School of Media and Journalism in 2023. He also attended the Royal Academy of Art, The Hague, where he studied Fine Art Photography from 2018-2019. He is particularly interested in communities and subcultures that provide a unique insight into a life that few have access to. He works as a freelancer focusing on longer projects combined with commissioned assignments for various international and national media.
Projects
2024

Are we nearly there yet?

Tucked away from the rest of society, the rest areas along the highways are meant to be a much-needed respite on the way to one’s final destination. In Denmark, there are 148 rest areas with open toilets supervised by the Danish Road Directorate. But these paved oases also have a life of their own, although hardly anyone stays more than 10 minutes. In his project Are we nearly there yet? Mathias Eis has visited strategically selected rest areas, preferably those that are still run independently of the big chains serving classic Danish dishes. The project creates a nuanced contemporary image of Denmark and the people who are either at work, traveling through the country, or just stopping at a rest area as a break from everyday life.
Mathias Eis
was nominated by
Copenhagen Photo Festival
in
2024
Show all projects
Each year every member of the FUTURES European Photography Platform nominates a set of artists and projects to become part of the FUTURES network.

Barbara Marstrand (b. 1994) has been selected for her project Still Life of Teenagers which playfully portrays the lives of Danish youth. Approaching photography with a curiosity about different groups of people, Marstrand offers a unique insight into different life experiences, combining her artistic practice and keen eye with sociological methods.

Emma Sarpaniemi (b.1993), based in Helsinki, has been selected for her project Two Ways to Carry a Cauliflower because of her refreshingly unique, satiric and at the same time intimate way of exploring identity. Through both performative and satirical self portraits, Sarpaniemi challenges traditional femininity and gender roles.

Frederik Danielsen (b. 1995) has been selected for his work revolving around the myths of the Danish island Als, where the artist himself grew up. Danielsen evokes the viewer's curiosity for these local places and their stories by applying a photographic approach that combines documentary photography and conceptual art, using both his own photographs as well as found material from local archives.

Jenni Toivonen (b. 1993) based in Helsinki, has been selected for her project Are We There - a performative journey to the old village Penedo where her grandparents were set to build an utopian community in the tropics. As it unfolds, the project becomes an investigation into migration, memory and history.

Mathias Eis (b. 1995) has been selected for his long-term project Are we nearly there yet?, which explores life at the 148 rest stops along the Danish highway. Although most Danish people have visited at least one of these stops, few attach any value to them, so Eis transforms these otherwise bland locations into places worth seeing.