Put all our Treasures Together

EDITION

2019

school

Ljósmyndaskólinn – School of Photography
Reykjavík, Iceland

All moments and events in life are little treasures that might at first seem insignificant, but once they are collected together they make up the pillars of your whole existence. 'Put all our Treasures Together' is about a period in life and I believe that life is divided into multiple diverse periods, both good and bad but equally important. This period was filled with the freedom of the wanderer and of course the feelings that emerge when you do not know your next step – the fear of dwelling in the unknown and wondering about the non-existing future. The feeling of a journey through life without any preconceived idea of the outcome and just carry on and collect those little treasures.

Reading Kahlil Gibran’s Prophet I came across a philosophy of life that became the inspiration
for putting this work together in the first place: «Build of your imaginings a bower in the wilderness before you build a house within the city walls. For even as you have homecomings in your twilight, so has the wanderer in you, the ever distant and alone.»

That is when I started to see the photographs as little golden stones on the road towards somewhere, maybe a home but maybe not. Before anything else, we must make a home for our soul and our imagination in the wilderness. To be rootless does not have to be negative, it means you are boundless, free to put your roots down wherever. Follow the path stone by stone and not by anyone’s rules but that does not mean you have to be a wanderer forever.

I started photographing my unspectacular daily life without any predetermined idea or goal for the material. I ended up with thousands of treasures in my pocket. This work came about only when the time had passed, as it does, and the material was completely parallel to my life; always growing but completely without a destination.