
- This exhibition is closed
Örjan Henriksson
September 24, 2021 – November 7, 2021
Photographer Örjan Henriksson has for four years done deep dives into the landscape of his childhood and his family Värmland. Liljevalchs shows a cutout from this project that depicts the people, nature and communities.
Örjan Henriksson is one of Sweden's foremost photographers, with a low-key and concentrated storytelling in image form. He loves the analog black and white photography and has had a number of high-profile exhibitions around the world. In 2015, he was awarded the first Bindefeld Scholarship in memory of the Holocaust.
Here he describes the background and his thoughts on the landscape:
”På min mors sida kommer vi från Värmland i flera led och jag känner starka band till landskapet och folket.
My grandfather, Emil Fredriksson, who was a pastor in the Mission League, had on his lot the districts Värmland-Dalsland. This large area he traveled around in by bicycle. My mother has told me that grandpa helped refugees with the help of his pastoral collar during the war.
My uncle, Mats Fredriksson, also a pastor in the MissionAry Association ,worked in these areas and I stayed with him one summer when I was a little boy. Mats was, incidentally, an extremely skilled photographer and musician.
The work on this project has taken many trips and all the trips have been cleansing for the soul. No need for stress, it just destroys the premise of taking in the impressions. If I can't take in the impressions, I have no expression.
Ack Värmland
When I travel along klarälven in northern Klarälvdalen it is difficult not to feel sadness and sadness.
Communities with abandoned derelict houses. Houses that once flowed with life but now stand there like empty skeletons. Some of them more ravaged than others by time and lack of life.
At the same time, I am filled with great respect and humility in the face of the people who still live and keep the landscape alive. Can we really afford not to allow the landscape and people to have more decent conditions?
Now we are fleeing out of the crowded cities in pure self-preservation from congestion and the spread of infection.
You Beautiful
This stunning landscape. It is impossible not to be struck by its grandeur and mystery.
Klarälven, this mighty river that has given life (and work) to so many for so long. It floats still and quietly but also wild and dangerous.
The great forests that, if you give yourself time to see and listen, offer everything that the soul of man so desperately needs.
For me, it became so clear that this only happened to me when it was late dusk or almost night. When I stopped and just stood there, my senses got sharpened and I started to see what I hadn't seen. My hearing was also tightened and I heard what I hadn't heard.
Maybe I saw what didn't even exist or heard what wasn't heard."
The exhibition, with five large and 13 smaller photographs, is on display in Liljevalchs+.