Geir Moseid (NO)
Undertaking
The series Undertaking investigates to what extent social, political and psychological factors shape today’s society. Furthermore, it explores how governmental control, group mentalities and xenophobia shape society’s behavior and how these constructs affect our coexistence and collective trust. The world is currently going through a political shift. Rhetorical platitudes, thought outmoded, serve to perpetuate long-established feelings of anger. It appears that fear has become the primary factor determining how groups relate to one another. Truth has become a fluid term relating to news, science, and photography alike. This apparent fluidity is fuelled by demagoguery and populism’s polarization of opinion. In this new framework, the lines between fact and fiction are blurred. In Undertaking, Geir’s aim is to create images that trigger a certain response in the viewer that either recalls a memory from their real life or from their fictional history. By combining cinematographic elements with motifs from everyday life, his images operate in-between fact and fiction, the seen and the experienced, where logic coexists with irrational thoughts. Various artworks of the artist were exhibited at the National Museum of Finland and JCDecaux Finland. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Geir Moseid is a Norwegian photographer living and working in Oslo, Norway. Since his graduation from London College of Communication in 2008, Moseid has been working on multiple photographic series in which documentary practice and staged photography meet. By working with a 4x5 inch camera, Moseid aims to challenge the way one can perceive and discuss social, anthropological and economical issues in contemporary photography. Moseid seeks a connection between the viewer and the world through the shared experience of common, recognizable scenarios even if they originate from everyday life, TV, cinema or advertising. His work aims to trigger emotional responses in the viewer that stem from the politics of stereotyping, gender classification, the forming of independent and group identities, and the barrier of prejudice. Communication and a humanistic approach has always been at the base of his creative practice even though the narrative’s elements within the work often remain open and ambiguous. To Moseid, a focus on colour, texture, ambiguity and human relationships of various kinds are of paramount importance.
Tomas Olsen (FI)
Inanimate The Inanimate project reflects on the control humans have over their own surroundings. The project consists of a series of small installations of plants, documented through photography. These installations are reflections of pain and cruelty. This aims to show that what is harmful to our surroundings is harmful to us humans. We are a part of our surroundings. We are one.
Various artworks of the artist were exhibited at the National Museum of Finland and JCDecaux Finland. AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY Tomas Olsen (born 1995, Helsinki, Finland), is a still life and portrait photographer. Curiosity and experimentation are the core foundation in his creative work.
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