Over a thousand professional photographers in the Nordic countries were commissioned to depict everyday life in the Nordic countries. Some had to take their cameras and go to places like the Faroe Islands or Svalbard, but most of them photographed in their own local environment. The book publisher Max Ström and the Foundation Expressions of humankind are behind the project.
- What we wanted to do was create a counterbalance to the usual media reporting. A project that focuses on everyday life and not evil, hurry and death, but everyday wear and everyday happiness, says Jeppe Wikström, at Max Ström.
Everyday life in focusMore than 200 images were selected by an international jury and together form the photo book Life in the Nordic Region in Swedish. It is published in all the Nordic national languages and in English. Something that is a pervasive theme for the images is trust, according to Jeppe Wikström.
- The most fun thing about this book is whether it can act as a discovery trip in our Nordic region, where you can both be surprised and recognize yourself, he says.
Photographer Elisabeth Ubbe's picture is a moment after a home birth in Vallentuna. She just missed the birth, but took the opportunity and snapped a picture of when the midwife together with the newly-delivered mother weighs the baby.
- There is much more to a birth than the birth itself. It is also a story, says Elisabeth Ubbe.
Not perfectWhat do you think is so attractive about people's everyday lives?
- All people are formed by pictures, films and media. When you, as a photojournalist, capture a daily life, it is not the perfect picture. The project has an opportunity to make the image of our lives bigger than popular culture, says Elisabeth Ubbe.
The photo exhibition will be touring around the Nordic region and the first one is Fotografiska in Stockholm. Today (Monday) some of the pictures are also exhibited in the Parliament House as the Nordic Council meets in Stockholm. The exhibition at Fotografiska is ongoing until March 2020.