Martin BogrenPassenger (Signed)

Martin Bogren – Passenger

A major figure in contemporary Swedish photography, Martin Bogren has developed a body of work in which the personal and poetic dimension is asserted with a practice of photography that is part of a form of initiatory journey. With Passenger, his latest project, even though the photographs were taken in India during several stays in Calcutta, it is not an Indian chronicle.

It is something else entirely, a form of wandering, which is not limited to a geographical journey, a test of distance or confrontation with an unknown environment and culture, a change of scenery.

The photographer delivers a set where a form of abandonment, of letting go, pierces through, which he translates with harsh or dreamlike images. His photographs emerge as subjective visions that reveal ambivalence, angelic or monstrous figures, lightness and violence. For the first time, he integrates colour into his work, which he alternates with great consistency with his black and white approach. As a way of developing a language that allows him to experience the world and himself and to translate the nuances and variations of perception and emotion.

As he writes: “When we for a moment silence our minds and let go of understanding there is a knowing beyond, without thinking, without judging, accusation or fear. We then see beauty for beauty itself without a need for analysis or mastery. Then we know who we really are. Meanwhile, we are just passing through.”