SYMBIOS

Hard cover book, screen print, 2021.


Symbiosis;

any of several living arrangements between members of two different species, including mutualism, commensalism, and parasitism…

This photo book is based on artistic collaborations. Pictures that in one way or another have been manipulated and reconstructed by 23 different artists. Each artist was assigned with a photograph and no photograph was the same as the other. The pictures were either sent by post or email and the artists were asked to do whatever they wanted with it, before sending it back.

The project involves a transformation or alteration of a photograph by using different methods and techniques. The artists were requested to transform the photograph into an original work of their own. To use their proper artistic language and alter the picture in a personal way. The result is a collective story told by numerous voices. A story that stems from the confrontations which occur while different individuals work in collusion with each other. The purpose is to challenge individual authorship while making headway for co-creation and reciprocal communication. A kind of synthesis of encounters between different individuals and the chains / bonds / relationships / that arise when people / things work together.

The question was: “how do you interpret this photograph?” Because if the image does not look the way you understand it, you simply have to create a new one. We depend upon our personal sensory faculties when interacting with a given work and therefore all the photographs will look completely different depending on who has touched it. It is a matter of putting together your own story by using the fragments that remain.

The photographs themselves tell a personal story, but not in any chronological order. I turned to my friends and places that I like. The person that I recently got to know next to that house I will never visit again, together with pictures of, among other things, a skull and a pinata. They work as symbols of the many contrasts in life, but through the artistic exchange, each image acquires a whole new meaning. It may not always be an interaction that profits both parties. Parasitism is a symbiotic relationship in which one benefits while the other is harmed, but it doesn’t need to be a negative relationship. Conversely, ‘parasitism' can also refer to the beneficial impact of (re)shaping the appearance of the 'host' into a different entity — thus stepping out of the shackles of its own identity. In this work the photograph acts as the germinating foundation for willful and playful transformations of art as a collective process.

Participating artists:

Alessandra Donato, Adam Fored, Amandah Andersson, Darko Brajković Đepeto Njapo, Ditte Lindroth, Erik Ernsäter, Fanni Olin Dahl, Felix Roll, Hannes Snällfot, Henrik Wejfeldt, Jessica Ekström, Julia Jutterström, Levina Redolfi, Leona Cauklija, Malena Brečević, Sara Källberg, Stephen Tierney, Sunniva Hestenes, Tamara Šćepanović, Theo Elias, Thomas Hakanen, Viggo Mattsson, Vilma Knapp, Yescka.