Artist
Susanne Fagerlund
Susanne Fagerlund (b. 1969) graduated with an MFA in Fine Arts from Gothenburg’s Valand Academy in 2021. She is currently following a post-master course at the Royal Institute of Art in Stockholm, Sweden. As a lens-based artist, Fagerlund explores the extended complexities and boundaries of the medium. Her installations oscillate between photography, video and digital technologies – with the subject of human and nonhuman relationships an underlying current throughout. Since 2021, Fagerlund’s works have featured in several group and solo exhibitions in Sweden. In collaboration with Hasselblad Center, a forthcoming venture will mark the 100th anniversary of Gothenburg's Natural History Museum; using AI to process the museum’s photographic archive, the project establishes a speculative future where images of new plants and species are formed.
Instagram: susannefagerlund
Website: susannefagerlund.com
THE DOPPELGÄNGER SERIES – Mourning mirror for what is being lost
THE DOPPELGÄNGER SERIES – MOURNING MIRRORS FOR WHAT LOST consists of photographs from nature reserves, collaborations with artificial intelligence (AI), holograms and video. Exploring the loss of biodiversity and unique biotopes, the project tackles our relationships of care and belonging to nature. Old-growth forests are essential biotopes for many plants and animals; cutting them down diminishes biodiversity and increases carbon dioxide emissions. For the project, the artist visits nature preserves – photographing, hiking, and experiencing the immersive feeling of forests. Afterwards, she collects her photographs into an archive of images with which to train the AI tool. Subsequently, AI mimics Fagerlund's photographs and creates interpreted artificial landscape images. The result of the collaboration is reminiscent of nature; though in fiction and mythology, the presence of a doppelgänger is often seen as a harbinger of future misfortune. From photographing her own images to the AI’s reformulation of her archive, the entire process is an act of mourning the things that are being lost.
Swedish Susanne Fagerlund (b. 1969) completed her MFA at Valand Academy in 2021, but nevertheless brings a lot of artistic experience with her. Fagerlund is selected for Futures 2023 on the basis of her unique artistic expression as well as her both sculptural and interdisciplinary work with the photographic medium, which i.a. uses natural history research, artificial intelligence and glitch feminism as a prism for her work. With The Doppelgänger Series – Mourning for what is being lost, Fagerlund tackles our relationship and belonging to nature. She has an intriguing utopian approach to AI as a tool to create a new visual archive, a ‘digital ecosystem’ of past and speculative future images of plants and species. An integration of AI which is interesting to discuss and unfold in the context of FUTURES.
The Danish photo-based artist Sofie Flinth (b.1996), educated at the Gerrit Rietveld Academie, has been selected on the basis of her portraits, which place themselves in the tension between staging and realism. In the project A Million Dollar View, Sofie Flinth explores the vanity of an elderly woman and the perception she has of herself. Flinth's portraits are completely devoid of the sensitivity that is often seen in documentary portraits, but acquire an almost advertising-like aesthetic through her work with themes such as nostalgia and vanity. Her photographic expression can be described as consequent, radical and relevant, and it also emphasizes the humor that her work contains. Sofie Flinth is an exciting example of a Danish artist who is exploring and expanding what portrait photography can and should be.
Danish photojournalist Mikkel Hørlyck (b. 1990) is a classic documentary photographer who works with social issues. In the long term project Jørgen, a Mystery, his intimate and personal story becomes universal and relevant through the drug addict Jørgen's fight for life, his love for his fellow men and his continuing dreams. All told sublimely through recognizable everyday situations, which can only be portrayed by a photographer who really takes an interest in his protagonist and decides to spend a long time on his photography. Mikkel Hørlyck's photography has an exceptionally distinct expression, which invites the viewers into the story and inevitably engages them. An expression that deserves greater international response with Futures. Hørlyck uses his talent to put global issues, social injustice on the agenda. From intimate projects like Jørgen or the Moldovan orphan children in The Neglected to the most recent project The Mercilessness Of The Sea which is part of his long term work on refugees.
Italian visual artist Giulia Mangione (b.1987) is based in Oslo and has resided in the Nordics for several years. With a MA at Bergen Arts Academy and studies in Advanced Visual Storytelling at the School of Media and Journalism in Aarhus, she has a well founded, broad and still curious approach to photography. She adds her feminine touch to the usually masculine genre of photographic road trip. In her project The Fall she manages to portray the prepper culture in a way that is both documentary and surreal at the same time. Each photograph stands as an individual work, and in the context it becomes an exciting, and complete visual style.
Norwegian Jonas Yang Tislevoll (b. 1993) educated from Bilder Nordic School of Photography in 2021 has presented a personal project with a highly relevant subject matter by “Take care of yourself son, your mom loves you”. Dealing with matters such as identity, belonging and women’s rights and adoption in South Korea he is contributing to an important and underlit agenda. His work dares to give space to few but meaningful details, leaving the audience with an atmosphere of an undefined static tension. An atmosphere which is underlined but the sometimes radical cropping The project presents a strong complementary interaction between the long texts and the images which is a strength and a potential Tislevoll could challenge on an international scale through FUTURES’.