Märta Thisner (born in 1981)
Is one of Sweden’s most prominent photographers. Image-search her name and you’ll find a cross-section of recent cultural figures from the worlds of dance, music and literature. Her portraits have an immediate readability, a refined contrast between a careful gaze and the brutal contours of her flash, which seems equally suited to rock and poetry as it does to still-life with glass sculptures.
This is how she first came into contact with Åsa Jungnelius — at a photo shoot for the Public Luxury exhibition at ArkDes in 2018. Jungnelius is one of the most respected designers and artists in Sweden, constantly renegotiating the relationship between the two forms. Although glass is her primary element, Jungnelius’ work is to be considered contemporary art, with its integral parts of social commentary and criticism.
Mussels is a portrait of Jungnelius in her natural habitat from 2018–2024. Thisner is present as the seeds are being sown in the studio and when they’re harvested in the garden in Månsamåla or at the glassworks in Kosta. In the photographs: a not-quite-feral cat, a thinned forest, a unique sculpture with an inner universe. The living encounters the withered, the everyday is visited by the sublime and braided together with ropes of many colors. Openness prevails. The unpaginated pages might seem random or like fragments of memory. Close your eyes and they are still there. What do we remember? What lingers is reformulated over time and assembled in new sequences. In an infinity, relative to life.
Märta Thisner has previously published Baby (puss Publications & Sailor Press, 2023) and Drunk in Love (Journal, 2019).
