(from the series “Home”)
© Lars Tunbjörk

I come back again and again to the images of photographer Lars Tunbjörk in reference to my own work. The photographs are from a series made primarily in the suburbs of Stockholm (but also in Boras, Hedemora, Espevik, and other Swedish towns) that he simply calls Home.

After his earlier series on leisure time and the world of office labor, Lars Tunbjörk returned to his childhood neighborhood to photograph his mother’s house. The experience intrigued him, and he continued shooting in similar areas around Sweden. Saturated with other people’s personal memories, his photographs convey the peculiar atmosphere of silence familiar in middle-class housing districts, not only in Sweden but in other countries as well. If on the surface his images purport to investigate the private domestic realm in terms of architecture, home decorating styles, and garden culture, as seen in Sweden during the latest two decades, under these multiple, quiet surfaces they reveal apocalyptically more.

Home
© Lars Tunbjörk

Along with showing care in making his stunning color images, it feels as though he has taken some time to also insure the production of beautifully bound books for each of his projects. Home is the final book in a trilogy, following Country Beside Itself and Office — two other projects which also illustrate Tunbjörk’s quiet quality of seeing.

If you can find yourself an opportunity to sit down with one of these books, I would highly recommend it.

(from the series “I Love Borås!”)
© Lars Tunbjörk

Also, look out for a new book of his called I Love Borås!, chronicling more of his journey around Sweeden between 1988 and 1995, scenes of ordinary life. The photographs are now on view at Gallery Kontrast in Stockholm and the book will be released in May.

This entry was posted on Monday, April 16th, 2007 at 2:45 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.