Almost There

“As your perspective of the world increases not only is the pain it inflicts on you less but also its meaning. Understanding the world requires you to keep a certain distance from it. Things that are too small to see with the naked eye, such as molecules and atoms, we magnify. Things that are too large, such as cloud formations, river deltas, constellations, we reduce. At length we bring it within the scope of our senses and we stabilise it with fixer. When it has been fixed we call it knowledge. Throughout our childhood and teenage years we strive to attain the correct distance from objects and phenomena. We read, we learn, we experience, we make adjustments. Then one day we reach the point where all the necessary distances have been set, all the necessary systems have been put in place. That is when time begins to pick up speed.” Karl Ove Knausgaård, “A death in the family”.
Almost There is a book work which presents a challenging constellation of images. Exploring of what is closest and what is furthest away. Ultimately it communicates the frustration of never being close enough and never being far enough away. Just managing to be almost there. The impossibility of reaching one’s destination. Photographing the photograph. Photography as an imaginary return journey and at the same time as a reflection of that place and that thing we can never go back to, which we can never see again in the same way. Almost There, in short, explores the genres and languages we use to try to understand the world through images. But it also examines how photography conditions our visions as well as the intrinsic mystery of each place: being there, getting there, seeing it from afar or observing it up close.