I grew up in Holmlia, a suburb of Oslo. Holmlia is right next to the beach surrounded by nature. Its inhabitants are from all corners of the world.
I had a happy childhood but discovered throughout mye teens after moving into the inner city that prejudices existed towards us from Holmlia. In particular if you had a different ethnic background.
The years passed and news coverage exposed that some young men were getting involved in crime related episodes. The statistics were also telling a story of high school drop outs, unemployment, and higher density with lowe income families in Holmlia.
Having been away from my safe haven for a decade a slowly started to worry that maybe Holmlia hade become more troubled. I decided to go back and portray the young males in their everyday. And explore wether my home had changed.
I found young men that were fully aware of the stigma from the media and thus highly supporting and caring for each other, often using the therm “bror” or brother between themselves. As a sign of trust. I also rediscovered a the nature and stillness that I had forgotten I grew up in.
Just as we had scarce resources growing up these young males also had bigger than large dreams and were not willing to let the media portrayal define them.
This project has received financial support from the Fritt Ord Foundation and Kunstsentrene I Norge.
Long term project about the inhabitants of a public housings in the suburb of Torshov in Oslo. Originally the buildings and its surround where planned out and designed to house a proud and growing working class in the early 1930’s.
As time passed Norway found a new economic future in the petrol industry. More Norwegians became part of the middle class. This neighborhood in central Oslo, started then accommodating people struggling with different social issues. Today, it has a mix of poor families, elderly who remained after several moved on, and a group of people struggling with various psychological issues and substance abuses.
The small city of Chichigalpa in Nicaragua is known for its rum that derives from the many sugar cane fields. Around 2014-2015 reports starting coming out that an uncommon high number of young males were being affected by chronic kidney disease (CKDu). Many of the workers thought at the time that it had somthing to do with chemicals used in the fields or contaminated water, but researchers have not yet managed to figure out what exactly was the main cause that so many getting ill and in worst case suffer death from chronic kidney disease.
Reports have shown in later years that similar cases of CKDu are found in other parts of the world, such as in India. The common denominator seems to be that most people affected are poor in hard working conditions living in countries with high degree of heat.
More of the industry is today more aware of giving their workers access to clean water, shade and frequents breaks from what is a physically demanding job.
With the rise of other services such as Über and Ola the iconic ambassador taxis of Kolkata are struggling. My visit to this city in India would never had been the same with out the yellow shades that lurk in every corner..
A collaboration with the NGO Unge funksjonshemmede. Young people with disabilities are tired of not being seen as complete individuals who also have a sexuality.
“Øyenhøyde” means at same eye level in Norwegian. These are meetings with people living in Torshov, Oslo. People that just wanted to be seen next to a white backdrop, deleting all context.
