Sweden | SOCIOLOGRAPHY

After years of steadily developing several long-term projects, 2018 was the year many of them dramatically changed. The Area is out in the world; my Hauts-de-France work is exhibiting; so many other projects are evolving. With those big changes in mind, here’s a recap of my work on major projects in 2018, a few highlights from smaller projects, and a little looking ahead to 2019.

The Area Film

After six years of work, The Area is screening. Since premiering at the Full Frame Film Festival in April and making its Chicago premiere at the Black Harvest Film Festival in August, we’ve been busy screening the film with an amazing set of partners, including the Metropolitan Planning Council, the Museum of Contemporary Photography, the National Public Housing Museum, universities, community organizing groups, and the Gene Siskel Film Center. To learn more about screenings, news, and requesting a screening, visit The Area’s website.

Hauts-de-France Mining Basin and the Resilient Images Residency

Following a preview at Expo Chicago and multiple exhibitions in France in 2017, my Resilient Images work had its full exhibition at the Hyde Park Art Center in 2018. In June, a subset of the project returned to France for exhibition during the national urban planning conference RDV avec la Ville. I made some new work during the June visit, so I’m not quite ready to call the project complete, but I’m pleased with it and where it’s going.

Installation of Hauts-de-France Mining Basin

Bean Creek in Indianapolis, Indiana

Over the last few years, I’ve been steadily developing a project in Indianapolis with support from Big Car. I tightened the work in 2018 by emphasizing how the south side neighborhood has evolved with small creek that winds through the community. The first exhibition from that residency will appear at the Tube Factory Art Space next year. The show focuses on the relationship between people and place, and puts the Bean Creek work in dialogue with my projects in The Area and Hauts-de-France. More information about the exhibition is on facebook.

Urban Farming in Milwaukee, Wisconsin

The national placemaking project Michael Carriere and I started back in 2009 is shifting from research to public engagement, with a second exhibition prepared and the book moving towards publication. In January, our exhibition Growing Place: A Visual Study of Urban Farming is opening at the Grohmann Art Museum, which situates Milwaukee’s contemporary urban farming movement in its history, drawing from archival photographs, documents, and contemporary artifacts. I’m especially excited about the programing we’re scheduling, including events with the Walnut Way Conservation Corps, Will Allen, and others. More details forthcoming!

Belfast, Northern Ireland

As I wrote earlier in the year, I made my fourth visit to Belfast, Northern Ireland in July to continue documenting the changing experience of Eleventh Night and The Twelfth. Among the new work I made this year was an aerial sub-project about the aftermath of the bonfires, which helps orient the work away from the specific moment of the events.

Rebuilding in Tōhoku, Japan

Last week I returned from Tōhoku, Japan, where I continued my work on the rebuilding process after the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear disaster. I’ll be sharing more photographs in the next few weeks, but here are two favorite rephotography sequences and a building happily back in use in Ishinomaki. The rebuilding process is somehow overwhelmingly fast and slow.

SKETCHES FROM ELSEWHERE

Camden, New Jersey

Chicago, Illinois Region

Dublin, Ireland

Ely, Minnesota

New Orleans, Louisiana

Paris, France Region

Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Reykjavik, Iceland Region

Santa Fe, New Mexico

San Diego, California Region

Seattle, Washington

St. Louis, Missouri

Stockholm, Sweden

Tokyo, Japan

To 2019!

Last week I traveled through southern Norway and Sweden. Since it was my first visit to Scandinavia, I decided to get a broad sense of the place, rather than work on a specific project. The below photographs are a few of my favorite images of city landscapes that are/were especially important for each city’s past and future. I’ve tried to include a balance of highly visible and less public places.

Göteborg, Sweden

Even though Göteborg had the longest daylight hours of any of the cities I visited, the two times I visited the city were cloudy and dark. The first of these three photographs is raumlabor‘s Sauna in Frihamnen (“Bathing Culture Goteborg”) project. The building opened in 2014 as the first step of the city’s plan to redevelop one of the last remaining (post-)industrial harbor slips. The other photographs are of the Drottningtorget and the downtown pedestrian zone.

Oslo, Norway

I was disappointed to only have one evening of snow on the trip, but the falling snow gave Oslo an etherial quality, softening the buildings and brightening the night sky. Buildings like the Uranienborg Church almost floated above the residential streets that surround them. By morning, the snow turned to a light rain, and I headed to the Norse Folkemuseum to see the Gol Stave Church. The church was built circa 1212 in Gol, Norway and moved to the grounds of the folk museum in the late 1880s after the townspeople built a new church and planned to demolish this one. Later in the day, I visited the Oslo Opera House, a Snøhetta-designed building completed in 2007 that is the anchor of the redeveloping central Oslo waterfront.

Gol Stave Church at the Norsk Folkemuseum

Örebro, Sweden

The city of Örebro is about two hours from Stockholm on the highway from Oslo. I stopped there to see an especially old castle and to visit the Svampen, a nearly 200 foot tall water tower with an observation deck and restaurant. Recently renovated, the tower offers excellent views of the development patterns of the smaller city.

Stockholm, Sweden

Of course, there’s more to see in Stockholm than a few photographs can convey, but I was especially impressed by the older portions of the city. A highlight of the trip was touring the early 20th century Stockholm City Hall and its spectacular mosaics. Even if its Golden Hall is overwhelmingly decorated, the room’s mosaics are somehow both whimsical and straightforward, with grand symbolism and matter of fact representations of once-contemporary life. The other two photographs provide views of the Gamla Stan, one from the City Hall, and the other on the island, with tourists in front of the Obelisk at Slottsbacken and buildings including the Royal Palace and Stockholm Cathedral.

Jönköping Region, Sweden

Between Stockholm and Goteborg are the ruins of the Brahehus Castle, a 17th century home designed as a country retreat. High on a bluff overlooking Lake Vättern, the building has sat all but abandoned since the early 18th century.

Back in the Air

I can’t help but conclude with a photograph from my Stockholm to Chicago flight. Since the flight departed in the early evening, we witnessed a sunset that lasted nearly eight hours. This was the view over the Canadian Torngat Mountains.

SOCIOLOGRAPHY

Tag Archives: Sweden

Old Projects, New Phases

Sweden and Norway

Sociology & Photography by David Schalliol