I'M HERE NOW

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I'm here now

“I’m here now” consists of a photobook and an exhibition which will be shown in Denmark and internationally. With this work I wish to study the complexities and challenges I have lived through. 

The camera is an incredible instrument for revealing the human soul – the way it is reflected in a person’s face or in a landscape. When I first started out as a photographer, it felt like an explosion, and many of my photographs manifested themselves as sombre isolation and withdrawal from the world. I delved into this emptiness and explored the darkness – not in the hope of understanding it, but in an attempt to keep my footing as the world inside me and around me was falling to pieces. But there were also times when I was unable to take photos. 

When I just let time pass. As a child I felt a close connection to nature. Every morning when I woke up, I would open the window and look out across the Limfjord. There was a forest at the end of our garden. When I walked between the trees, I crossed a threshold, where I could disappear and live in a world of my own. I often played on my own. But I never felt alone. 

The soft breath of the forest spoke to me. I believe there is a boundary between our known reality and dreams. Between the day and the night exists a space where you can find elements that unfold into both worlds. These are the spaces I seek out in my photographs. Spaces that come to represent a state of mind or a memory of what once was. This is the reason why I have worked with nature as a basic material in my photographs. These photographs become a kind of memory.

Helga Theilgaard, may 2022