when I was not a lesson I was rather
insecure combined with them engaged and
curious personality on the other hand
was sometimes a problem I wanted to
contribute to raise my voice and tell
how I saw the world so I had a very
strong will but I didn’t really dare to
to use it at age 17 I discovered
photography and I soon realized that the
camera was an excuse to talk to
strangers it was like a door of nerve to
other communities than my own and I
could hide behind the camera now I no
longer hide behind the camera I strongly
believe that in order to tell something
profound to expect people to let me in I
need to let them in I need to be visible
to be present with my personality all my
fears all my excitements to me
photography is about seeing other people
and their stories and by that I don’t
mean to watch them or to observe them I
mean to really see them to be curious to
be involved to engage this is the way I
build trust which is crucial if you want
to make intimate photos only by caring
about my subjects I can make you care
about them my work often explores the
life of young people in the north I
spent months hanging out with youth in
Finnmark which is some County in the
extreme northeastern part of Norway
bordering with Russia the barren sea and
everybody knows this is no where is the
title of the work and the question I
asked was how is it to grow up and live
your teenagers in nowhere land far away
from all the things that young people
consume far away from from the urban
centers of popular culture and trends to
find out I did like the local youth I
did like you Liam Heidi in this photo
they told me all we do is wait we walk
back and forth between the grocery store
and the kiosk waiting for something to
happen even though we know that nothing
will so I worked back and forth back and
forth but unlike them I felt that while
they were waiting everything was
happening I mean that’s where that’s
when wild ideas came up like like
jumping from one roof to the other or
driving the snow mobile outside and the
slopes in the wilderness that’s when
they got their first Hickey or we’re
just hanging out with friends so like
yeah for us it might be nowhere land but
for them I mean it’s their world that’s
where their lives are happening right
now
I photograph everyday moments and it’s
not so much about showing how it is
rather I try to create a more universal
and timeless narrative about being young
so the moments before and after I push
the button I’m sure we have all been
there
either as the lucky one who got the
dance or as the the one who had to watch
so these are pictures of ordinary
Norwegian youth on the threshold to
above NASA adulthood waiting for life to
start the same ordinary Norwegian youth
we went on the summer camp one week in
July 2011 it was Friday 22nd of July and
I was about to grab my bag and leave the
office of VG a newspaper in Oslo I was
working as a picture editor over the
summer then we heard a big blast the
building was shaking and outside the
window the air was grey and filled with
smoke we were all evacuated through the
back entrance and on the ground I found
myself in a warlike zone around us the
buildings were destroyed on the ground
there were wounded people dead people
and I have more than 10 years of
experience working as a photojournalist
so it should really be in my genes to
just grab my camera and run into a scene
like that but I was paralyzed and I was
terrified my instinct failed
later in the afternoon we got the
information that young mother people
were being killed on utøya the island
which is just outside Oslo there was the
political or a summer camp for
politically engaged youth and the next
day we knew that the perpetrator was a
young Norwegian man who first detonated
a bump in the govern our side the
government building which was next to
where I was where had been working and
then he went to Austria and killed 69
people and wounded 66 in the following
weeks I was assigned to photograph the
aftermaths of aftermath of the attack
I met families who had lost a child and
I must young people who escaped who
survived one day I photographed a dream
another one he was wounded and
hospitalized and while I was there
taking these pictures he
phone rang constantly and he picked up
and it was the BBC it was the CNN New
York Times all the big international
media’s and outside his window there was
even a camera team waiting and at that
very moment two thoughts went through my
head first was what will happen to
Audrey on the day when his phone stops
ringing when the next catastrophe
happened somewhere else in the world and
the cameras are turned in a different
direction and the second was what about
all the other survivors or the other
young people who escaped there were
around 500 people who managed to to
escape and at some point they were all
supposed to go back to their old lives
having witnessed like unbelievable
terrible things they were supposed to go
on with their lives and carry all these
memories inside and many of them most of
them would probably never be called up
by the BBC or or raise their voice and
make it to a front page I began to
travel around their way and portray the
young survivors when they were back in
their home environments I wanted to find
out how they and their lives had changed
I used an analogue middle format camera
and a notebook and this sound recorder
so I wanted to keep it very simple it
was just them my camera their stories
and me the biggest problems in a
teenager’s life should really just be
God I have no money I’m not old enough
to go get into the bar I’m out of
mascara the boy I like doesn’t like me
I’m not supposed to be afraid of being
shot when walking down the streets the
change from being an ordinary 16 year
old girl without major concerns to being
in a situation where I thought I would
get killed hearing other people being
shot losing good friends I never thought
life could change so dramatically that’s
the words of Sofia Karolina to the right
she ha she hid together with her best
friend Victoria Wieck who also can see
in this picture before I started this
project which I called one day in
history by the way before I started the
work I asked myself the question do I
have the right to contact these youth
and dig into all this grieve and trauma
as a photographer as a stranger we often
don’t know how the survivors are a while
after an incident during or shortly
after a terror attack or a catastrophe
catastrophe and there’s a lot of media
attention but then something else
happens and life goes on we don’t see
the survivor anymore and therefore we
don’t have the opportunity to care the
adolescence is a time for great dreams
for aspirations and ambitions the young
survivors I met they all longed for the
past all that dreamed of was living an
ordinary life now more than five soon
six years later I sometimes and
encounter them on Facebook or in real
life some still struggle
I also study they work some fight for a
better world through working with NGOs
somehow become politicians many left
politics entirely some have a baby and
their even a few photographers among
them after this work was published I
received numbers feedback from people
all over the world either because of
compassion or because they had some
experience a crisis or something a
traumatic in their own lives and that
made me understand that even if these
are portraits of a very specific group
of young Norwegians they also tell a
much larger and universal story about
surviving as a human being and that is
how I raised my voice as a photographer
to give people regardless of cultural
social political geographical background
the opportunity to indent identify to
care and to understand the world that we
live in thank you so much
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music] you
insecure combined with them engaged and
curious personality on the other hand
was sometimes a problem I wanted to
contribute to raise my voice and tell
how I saw the world so I had a very
strong will but I didn’t really dare to
to use it at age 17 I discovered
photography and I soon realized that the
camera was an excuse to talk to
strangers it was like a door of nerve to
other communities than my own and I
could hide behind the camera now I no
longer hide behind the camera I strongly
believe that in order to tell something
profound to expect people to let me in I
need to let them in I need to be visible
to be present with my personality all my
fears all my excitements to me
photography is about seeing other people
and their stories and by that I don’t
mean to watch them or to observe them I
mean to really see them to be curious to
be involved to engage this is the way I
build trust which is crucial if you want
to make intimate photos only by caring
about my subjects I can make you care
about them my work often explores the
life of young people in the north I
spent months hanging out with youth in
Finnmark which is some County in the
extreme northeastern part of Norway
bordering with Russia the barren sea and
everybody knows this is no where is the
title of the work and the question I
asked was how is it to grow up and live
your teenagers in nowhere land far away
from all the things that young people
consume far away from from the urban
centers of popular culture and trends to
find out I did like the local youth I
did like you Liam Heidi in this photo
they told me all we do is wait we walk
back and forth between the grocery store
and the kiosk waiting for something to
happen even though we know that nothing
will so I worked back and forth back and
forth but unlike them I felt that while
they were waiting everything was
happening I mean that’s where that’s
when wild ideas came up like like
jumping from one roof to the other or
driving the snow mobile outside and the
slopes in the wilderness that’s when
they got their first Hickey or we’re
just hanging out with friends so like
yeah for us it might be nowhere land but
for them I mean it’s their world that’s
where their lives are happening right
now
I photograph everyday moments and it’s
not so much about showing how it is
rather I try to create a more universal
and timeless narrative about being young
so the moments before and after I push
the button I’m sure we have all been
there
either as the lucky one who got the
dance or as the the one who had to watch
so these are pictures of ordinary
Norwegian youth on the threshold to
above NASA adulthood waiting for life to
start the same ordinary Norwegian youth
we went on the summer camp one week in
July 2011 it was Friday 22nd of July and
I was about to grab my bag and leave the
office of VG a newspaper in Oslo I was
working as a picture editor over the
summer then we heard a big blast the
building was shaking and outside the
window the air was grey and filled with
smoke we were all evacuated through the
back entrance and on the ground I found
myself in a warlike zone around us the
buildings were destroyed on the ground
there were wounded people dead people
and I have more than 10 years of
experience working as a photojournalist
so it should really be in my genes to
just grab my camera and run into a scene
like that but I was paralyzed and I was
terrified my instinct failed
later in the afternoon we got the
information that young mother people
were being killed on utøya the island
which is just outside Oslo there was the
political or a summer camp for
politically engaged youth and the next
day we knew that the perpetrator was a
young Norwegian man who first detonated
a bump in the govern our side the
government building which was next to
where I was where had been working and
then he went to Austria and killed 69
people and wounded 66 in the following
weeks I was assigned to photograph the
aftermaths of aftermath of the attack
I met families who had lost a child and
I must young people who escaped who
survived one day I photographed a dream
another one he was wounded and
hospitalized and while I was there
taking these pictures he
phone rang constantly and he picked up
and it was the BBC it was the CNN New
York Times all the big international
media’s and outside his window there was
even a camera team waiting and at that
very moment two thoughts went through my
head first was what will happen to
Audrey on the day when his phone stops
ringing when the next catastrophe
happened somewhere else in the world and
the cameras are turned in a different
direction and the second was what about
all the other survivors or the other
young people who escaped there were
around 500 people who managed to to
escape and at some point they were all
supposed to go back to their old lives
having witnessed like unbelievable
terrible things they were supposed to go
on with their lives and carry all these
memories inside and many of them most of
them would probably never be called up
by the BBC or or raise their voice and
make it to a front page I began to
travel around their way and portray the
young survivors when they were back in
their home environments I wanted to find
out how they and their lives had changed
I used an analogue middle format camera
and a notebook and this sound recorder
so I wanted to keep it very simple it
was just them my camera their stories
and me the biggest problems in a
teenager’s life should really just be
God I have no money I’m not old enough
to go get into the bar I’m out of
mascara the boy I like doesn’t like me
I’m not supposed to be afraid of being
shot when walking down the streets the
change from being an ordinary 16 year
old girl without major concerns to being
in a situation where I thought I would
get killed hearing other people being
shot losing good friends I never thought
life could change so dramatically that’s
the words of Sofia Karolina to the right
she ha she hid together with her best
friend Victoria Wieck who also can see
in this picture before I started this
project which I called one day in
history by the way before I started the
work I asked myself the question do I
have the right to contact these youth
and dig into all this grieve and trauma
as a photographer as a stranger we often
don’t know how the survivors are a while
after an incident during or shortly
after a terror attack or a catastrophe
catastrophe and there’s a lot of media
attention but then something else
happens and life goes on we don’t see
the survivor anymore and therefore we
don’t have the opportunity to care the
adolescence is a time for great dreams
for aspirations and ambitions the young
survivors I met they all longed for the
past all that dreamed of was living an
ordinary life now more than five soon
six years later I sometimes and
encounter them on Facebook or in real
life some still struggle
I also study they work some fight for a
better world through working with NGOs
somehow become politicians many left
politics entirely some have a baby and
their even a few photographers among
them after this work was published I
received numbers feedback from people
all over the world either because of
compassion or because they had some
experience a crisis or something a
traumatic in their own lives and that
made me understand that even if these
are portraits of a very specific group
of young Norwegians they also tell a
much larger and universal story about
surviving as a human being and that is
how I raised my voice as a photographer
to give people regardless of cultural
social political geographical background
the opportunity to indent identify to
care and to understand the world that we
live in thank you so much
[Music]
[Applause]
[Music] you
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