Intervju med den italienske fotobloggen Nordic Frame som skriver om nordisk samtidsfotografi. Intervjuet er oversatt fra italiensk.

In the “Engagement” project, you photograph various places in Norway. What is the fundamental theme of this project globally?

I want to explore the environment and the climate crisis in a visual and artistic way that is open to interpretation.

Why are these places important to you? Which is the most invasive man intervention on the natural environment in your opinion?

For my the places highlight the consequences of our overconsumption, that the raw materials in the products we buy and the power in the outlet actually come from somewhere. I think the huge nature interventions caused by our consumption are scary, but also visually interesting. I believe that how we influence the climate is our biggest nature intervention. Some of the local nature interventions I have photographed are of wind power and hydropower that generate «clean energy» but with big local consequences. In the future I plan to photograph Norwegian oil platforms in the North Sea which causes great damage elsewhere. I am also working on a new photo series that tries to visualize climate change by looking at how we adapt to them in Norway. Last winter, the world's largest indoor cooled ski resort opened just outside Oslo. This huge Snø Oslo (Snow Oslo) building becomes for me a metaphor for how we adapt to climate change without solving the basic problem. Statistics from the Meteorological Institute show that Oslo has lost 21 winter days in the last 30 years. Meteorologists believe that man-made climate change plays a major role in this development. With this in mind, the absence of natural snow outside the building can be understood as a much greater natural intervention than the built-in, chilled ski slope itself.

"New Oslo" is a very interesting project; what inspires you to work on this topic? Is this an ongoing project?

Thanks, it's nice to hear that this local project from my hometown may also be relevant overseas. I began systematically photographing my surroundings after the so-called fjord city plan was adopted in 2020. This is Oslo’s largest urban development project in recent times. Waterfront areas have been taken from the port industries and given over to offices, culture and hous­ing in order to open the city up to the fjord. Development is still in progress and affect­ing the whole city, with several institutions moving to the new areas.

The city is now completely dif­ferent, and the process is set to continue for many years to come, so will my New Oslo project.

Now I photograph more parts of the city than just along the waterfront of the city. What I am concentrating on just now is the demolition of the Y-blokka (The Y-block), a late-modernist government building that has been a key part of Oslo since 1970. In spite of widespread protests, this unique building – chosen as one of Europe’s seven most endangered cultural monuments by Europa Nostra and the European Investment Bank Institute – is being destroyed. It is really sad that we in the urban renewal are wiping out our history that way.

I saw that you are currently working on a pandemic project. How did you approach this topic? Did this new situation influence the way you approach photography?

Like the climate crisis, the coronavirus is an invisible danger. Without a microscope it is impossible to take a picture of the virus itself, but the consequences of it, such as empty places, can be depicted. Only the certainty of the virus's existence gives places and objects an expanded meaning. Taking a picture of something you can only see the consequences of has been an interesting challenge for me as a photographer, which is also relevant in my other projects, especially in the Engagement project in relation to the climate threat. At one point, the two projects meet when the Snø Oslo ski resort had to close due to the pandemic.

Do you think that photography could help us reflect on isolation consequences?

Yes, Photography can be used to explore the consequences of isolation both on a human level or as I have done to look at how usually crowded places are without people.