WHERE AM I I
> from 5 of november to 21 of december 2003
Biography (in French only)
Where Am I
JH Engström comes from a town set in the middle of a Swedish forest, which owes its existence to the factory set up there. For the first twelve years of his life, Engström was surrounded by the world of work and the mentality
that goes with it, before moving with his parents to Paris, where he lived for two and a half years. On returning to Sweden, he no longer understood anything about life, his parents, the people, so great were the differences.
This inner turmoil, this difficulty with being "present", already being elsewhere, was to stay with him. He formed a strong friendship during his photography studies with his teacher, Anders Petersen, of whom he proudly claims to be the pupil. He finds the Swedish photography scene too narrow, insufficient, he feels somewhat removed from it, alienated.
He now lives and works in Stockholm, where he still loves to frequent the bars. The only thing that has changed is
Anna - with her, he can stay home alone.
Interview
What kind of relationship do you have with what you photograph?
When I take a photo of a human being, a place, a situation, or an object, I always strongly identify with the subject.
My own history, my baggage, resounds in what I photograph. I put "different layers" of my feelings into it.
I express my feelings, my thoughts, and present them. I do not try to explain the things or the links that exist between them. I can only photograph what I feel, what comes of the meetings with people. In that sense my work is completely subjective. Yet, at the same time, I am interested in objectivity, the fact that the photograph is always dealing with reality, and in this case subjectivity is of no interest to me. It's paradoxical.
There is a great deal of drama in you photos. Why do you reinforce it when printing, by stressing the grain, scratches, or colour distortions?
Because I want, at all cost, to convey what I feel, what's going on inside my head, but the problem is I never entirely manage it. Yet I am still there, and I have been taking photographs for many years; it’s a way of belonging to
the world.
"Where Am I". This question that is not a question will be the title of the exhibition of the work you have produced during your stay in Brussels.
First of all, Brussels is a strange city to me. Its identity is not clear to me. Then, there are always the personal questions: what is life, why am I here?
It's not easy. It's not easy to live in Stockholm either.
There is a lot about solitude in the photos that I have taken in Brussels. Being in the strange situation of residing here for two months, I have often found myself alone, and that's good. I have met people, but have not made acquaintances. The solitude of others is something that also interests me.
In the drama that is each life, there is the solitude that pushes the human being to make choices to ensure survival.
I am talking about genuine solitude, the kind one carries alone: you have to carry your own life!
What have your favourite places been during your stay in Brussels?
I cannot stay home, it makes me nervous, I have to get out straight away, I need to meet people, to watch how people are with each other, in bars, for example; for me, the bar is the best theatre in the world. I am there and I see all, I feel absorbed in it, involved, I understand why they say this, that or the other.
It is beautiful, I love these people who act like players on a stage, who lie all the time, but who are also true since they say what they are. I love bars: anyone can come, we can talk about anything and everything. The bar is a public living room: we are not at anyone's place, we are free, it's for everyone, and I feel free there.
A word of conclusion before we discover your photos?
If my work could be summed up in a word, it would be solitude, my own and that of others. I express it all the time; it comes out through my feelings, what I am thinking at the time. My latest work is entitled My Own Little
World, like that of a child.
Being highly receptive all the time is not good for me, it's very tiring, yet it is also why I do photography, it helps me to live. It is something I need to do, it bit like a question of life or death, and so I have to do it: I do it and then I leave. Goodbye!
By Jean-Louis Godefroid, August 2003
Translation: Louise Durkin
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