Conditions at the Edge

Norway does not enter this work as scenery.

Its geography presents conditions that cannot simply be designed away. Mountains, coastlines, weather and distance affect where people live, how they move and what is required to maintain connections between places. Yet geography alone does not determine how a society functions. Infrastructure, institutions, labour and political decisions shape which difficulties are addressed, which are accepted and whose everyday lives depend on the arrangements that follow.

Conditions at the Edge examines what must be continually organised for ordinary life to remain possible.

The project extends a question developed in City in Return, my photographic essay on the structures and activities through which urban life is sustained. In Norway, the investigation moves beyond the city as its principal field. It considers the relationship between environmental conditions and the systems people establish to live and work within them.

Transport networks, maritime connections, energy infrastructure, public institutions and systems of coordination are possible subjects. Their significance will depend on what the photographic work reveals, rather than on a predetermined inventory of national characteristics.

The project is also concerned with a contradiction: systems designed to overcome distance and maintain continuity can create new forms of dependence. What appears reliable in everyday life may require constant intervention, while the work that sustains it remains largely unnoticed.

The photographs will be made in black and white, primarily through observation in publicly accessible environments. Where access is granted, selected operational and institutional settings may become part of the work. These will not be treated as privileged explanations of the systems involved, but as places subject to the same questions of visibility, function and interpretation as any other environment.

The project is planned across three annual phases from 2027 to 2029, beginning in Oslo and continuing through western, central and northern Norway. Its eventual structure will emerge through photography, return, selection and sequence.

The intention is a book-length photographic work. Its conclusions cannot be established before the places and situations have been encountered.

Current Stage

Updated October 2026

Conditions at the Edge is in preparation. The first photographic period is planned for Oslo in March 2027, followed by further work in Bergen and Trondheim. Subsequent phases are intended to continue northward in 2028 and 2029.

The project combines observation in publicly accessible environments with possible access to selected civic, infrastructural and operational settings. Initial agreements in principle have been obtained for some visits; their implementation remains subject to scheduling, permissions and local requirements. These arrangements do not constitute institutional partnerships.

Routes, return visits and the eventual balance of subjects will be determined as the work develops.