Bodil Frendberg

"In my own work I combine fact and fiction to create a new reality. My pictorial content is staged photography and I find inspiration for it in everyday life. The objects I am using are either made props or objects that I have found in flea markets and secondhand shops. The people that I use as models in my staged photographic scenes are often people that I have found in everyday situations. Their body language and facial expressions trigger my imagination to combine the real with fiction. I deliberately stage a scene in front of the camera where a photographic fictional reality is being created. I am the director and costume designer. I create a "narrative tableaux" The human body in conjunction with the prop is placed in an open space. The space is often chosen with the light in mind and I am looking for large windows and openings for the light to travel through and within. The space is well researched before setting the scene and when I have found a space, I will visit the space several times to study the light and to prepare the scene. Props will be laid out and chosen with the space and the human body in mind. The light acts as another layer in the photographic narrative. Within the space I move the scene spontaneously along with the movement of the light. Without the light the scene won't come to life. The light gives the scene character. It's like a light play, where the light falls and shapes the space and the human body and the prop is transformed yet again into another layer of meaning. The light shapes the scene and the human body becomes the actor and with the prop and the light the photographic narrative takes on another dimension. I bring these elements together and try to instigate an interaction and choreograph the scene as it unfolds.

By de-contextualizing the object a transformation in the dialogue between the person, place and prop can happen and the scene briefly acquires another life, another meaning and an unpredictable and exciting other reality that I want to coax out from its hiding place behind our everyday expectations. In this world a bird wing, a fan and an ancient sieve can become hats. Black paper cones could appear as if they were sharp rose thorns in a dark fairy tale. Birds, chairs, balloons, hats, decaying plants, a fan, the ordinary take on a new identity as they deceive us for a short while.

Many of these photographs are lith printed, a photographic darkroom process I have worked with a great deal. The characteristics of the lith print is the pink/brown tone. "

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