(In English Below)

Vissa resor börjar långt innan båten lämnar bryggan. Den här började genom fotografiet — genom veckor av att sakta ner, observera ljuset, söka kompositioner och lära sig att se på ett nytt sätt.

Det som började som en del av programmet Inspirerande Fotografering under ledning av fotografen Robert Wållberg utvecklades gradvis till något större: en visuell resa genom Stockholms innerskärgårds vattenvägar, där fotografi, historia, arkitektur, minnen och kulturellt berättande började flätas samman.

Några av de fotoövningar och kreativa utforskanden som växte fram under resan syns här — där ljus, former, rörelse och stämningar gradvis blev till berättelser genom kameran. Resan blev inte bara en förflyttning mellan platser, utan också ett sätt att börja se världen annorlunda genom fotografiet.

Från vattnet tycks villorna nästan avslöja sig på ett annat sätt. I Stocksund, Djursholm, Storholmen och Lidingö öppnar sig fasaderna mot ljuset medan berättelser långsamt träder fram genom linsen: konstnärer och arkitekter, hotellpionjärer, kulturmecenater, industrifamiljer, kungliga kopplingar och kreativa världar som fortfarande tycks dröja kvar längs strandlinjen.

Ibland kändes resan mindre som dokumentation av platser och mer som att röra sig genom historiska lager. En villa blev en dörröppning till ett annat sekel. En spegling i vattnet bar spår av samtal, målningar, musik och liv som en gång levts där. Kameran blev långsamt både observatör och berättare.

Och kanske var det där ännu en dimension av immersivt berättande tyst började ta form. För resan fotograferades inte bara. Den kartlades också, lagerlades och dokumenterades rumsligt genom ArcGIS StoryMaps från ESRI.

Kombinationen av bilder, geografi, vattenvägar, rörelse och berättelse förvandlade upplevelsen till något mer immersivt än ett traditionellt resereportage. Inte bara en serie fotografier — utan en resa som människor själva kan röra sig genom.

Kartan blir en del av berättandet. Landskapet blir berättelsens struktur. Platsen själv blir ett minne.

I den meningen öppnar StoryMaps ännu en fascinerande dimension av immersivt berättande — där fotografi, geografi, historia och reflektion smälter samman till lager av närvaro och upptäckande.

Delar av denna framväxande process har löpande delats genom Inspiring Photography-reflektionerna på Instagram via @novisali_arts och kulminerar nu i Resereportaget och en privat utställning på Tollare Gård i Nacka.

Det som alltmer fascinerar mig är hur immersivt berättande idag kan ske genom så många sammanlänkade former: genom fotografi, genom rörelse, genom kartor, genom förstärkta lager, genom minnen, genom atmosfär och genom mellanrummen mellan historia och nutid.

Kanske handlar immersivt berättande egentligen inte alls om teknik. Kanske handlar det om att hjälpa oss att träda djupare in i berättelser, platser och mänsklig närvaro.

Utforska StoryMap Bakom Fasaderna på Svenska:

Inspirerande Fotografering Reflektions serie & länkar

Reflektionsserien Inspirerande Fotografering har vuxit fram under ledning av den utmärkta fotografen Robert Wållberg — en säsong av gemensamt utforskande där fotografer vecka för vecka har experimenterat med seende genom ljus, komposition, perspektiv och samtal.

Det har varit en resa som inte bara handlat om teknik och bilder, utan också om att långsamt börja se världen annorlunda genom kameran — hur ljus formar rum, hur detaljer förändrar berättelser och hur fotografi kan öppna nya sätt att uppleva närvaro, stämning och mening.

Delar av processen har löpande delats i reflektionsserien Inspiring Photography på Instagramkontot @novisali_arts och kan upplevas via denna länk reflektionsserien Inspiring Photography:

Direktlänkar till StoryMaps:

Bakom Fasaderna på svenska

Behind the Facades På Engelska

Prova att skapa din egen StoryMap med ArcGIS

Relaterade Historier

Om Novisali 

Novisali (alias Liselotte Engstam) är, vid sidan av sina roller som professionell styrelseledamot och rådgivare, en multimediakonstnär med ett nyfiket och utforskande sinne.
Hon strävar efter att lära och utvidga konstupplevelser för både nuvarande och nya publikgrupper, genom att använda både traditionella och nya digitala medier.

Mer information och utställningar finns på Novisali.com.
Detta blogginlägg delas också på www.liselotteengstam.com.

Behind the Facades 

– Photography, History, and Storytelling Along Stockholm’s Waterways

Some journeys begin long before the boat leaves the pier. This one began through photography — through weeks of slowing down, observing light, searching for composition, and learning to see differently.

What started as part of the Inspiring Photography program led by photographer Robert Wållberg gradually evolved into something larger: a visual journey through the waterways of Stockholm’s inner archipelago, where photography, history, architecture, memory, and cultural storytelling began to intertwine.

Some of the photography exercises and creative explorations that emerged during the journey can be seen here — where light, shapes, movement, and atmosphere gradually became stories through the camera. The journey became not only a movement between places, but also a way of beginning to see the world differently through photography.

From the water, the villas almost seem to reveal themselves differently. In Stocksund, 
Djursholm, Storholmen, and Lidingö, facades open toward the light while stories quietly emerge through the lens: artists and architects, hotel pioneers, cultural patrons, industrial families, royal connections, and creative worlds that still seem to linger along the shoreline.

At times, the journey felt less like documenting places and more like moving through historical layers. A villa became a doorway into another century. A reflection in the water carried traces of conversations, paintings, music, and lives once lived there. The camera slowly became part observer, part storyteller. 

And perhaps that is where another dimension of immersive storytelling quietly appeared. Because the journey was not only photographed. It was also mapped, layered, and spatially documented through ArcGIS StoryMaps by ESRI.

The combination of images, geography, waterways, movement, and narrative transformed the experience into something more immersive than a traditional travel story. Not only a sequence of photographs — but a journey people can move through themselves.

The map becomes part of the storytelling. The landscape becomes narrative structure. Place itself becomes memory.

In that sense, StoryMaps opens another fascinating dimension of immersive storytelling:
where photography, geography, history, and reflection merge into layered experiences of presence and discovery.

Fragments of this evolving process have continuously been shared through the Inspiring Photography reflections on Instagram via @novisali_arts and now culminate in the travel report and a private exhibition at Tollare Gård in Nacka.

What increasingly fascinates me is how immersive storytelling today can happen across so many interconnected forms: through photography, through movement, through maps, through augmented layers, through memory, through atmosphere, and through the spaces between history and the present moment.

Perhaps immersive storytelling is not ultimately about technology at all. Perhaps it is about helping us enter more deeply into stories, places, and human presence.

Explore StoryMap Behind the Facades in English

Inspiring Photography Reflection Series and links

The reflection series Inspiring Photography has evolved under the guidance of the excellent photographer Robert Wållberg — a season of shared exploration where photographers, week by week, experimented with seeing through light, composition, perspective, and conversation.

It has been a journey not only about technique and images, but also about slowly beginning to see the world differently through the camera — how light shapes spaces, how details transform stories, and how photography can open new ways of experiencing presence, atmosphere, and meaning.

Parts of the process have continuously been shared through the reflection series Inspiring Photography on the Instagram account @novisali_arts and can be experienced through this link Inspiring Photography reflection series:

Find direkt links to the Story Maps :

Behind the Facades in English :

Bakom Fasaderna In Swedish :

Try make your own StoryMap with ArcGIS from ESRI

Related Stories

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com.

The post Bakom fasaderna/ Behind the Facades first appeared on Novisali.

When the Swedish visual artist died in 1944, she was convinced the world was not ready for her work—mystical, abstract paintings that seemed to belong to another time. Rather than seek recognition after her avant-garde visions were dismissed, she chose withdrawal. Her instructions were clear: the paintings should remain hidden for at least twenty years and never be sold.

Today, that silence has finally broken.

In Paris, more than eighty years after her death, af Klint is being given her first major solo exhibition in France. At the Grand Palais and the Centre Pompidou, her monumental Paintings for the Temple—created as part of her work with a spiritual circle of women—are now presented as a cornerstone of modern art. What was once considered incomprehensible is now seen as foundational.

But Hilma af Klint was not alone.

She lived and worked in the same era as Tyra Kleen, another Swedish artist drawn to symbolism, spirituality and unseen worlds. The two moved within overlapping circles and were in contact—part of a wider, often overlooked network of artists exploring ideas that did not yet have a place in the official story of art. Today, Tyra Kleen’s work is being shown in Halmstad, bringing her back into view alongside her contemporaries.

Their stories echo one another—parallel paths that history is only now beginning to reconnect.

And somewhere between these lines, I imagine my aunt, Engla Hägertz, moving quietly through time. Not as a historical figure in the same narrative, but as a witness of another kind. In my mind, she exchanges letters with both Hilma and Tyra—letters never sent, yet somehow received. They write about light, about symbols, about the strange persistence of vision.

In one imagined note, Hilma might confess her doubt: “Will they ever understand?”

And Tyra, perhaps from another studio, might respond: “Understanding is not ours to decide.”

Engla, with her camera and her patient gaze, simply observes—knowing that some images must wait before they can be seen.

Today, she, too, steps into the light. Engla is now part of Novisali’s exhibition at Hallands Museum and featured in Hallands Vårsalong, where past and present meet in quiet conversation. And this is not the end—a future exhibition with Novisali and Engla will be announced later, extending this dialogue across time even further.

Now, in Paris and Halmstad, across museums and imagined letters, that long waiting feels as if it has come to an end.

Or perhaps, more truthfully—

it has only just begun.

References

About Hilma in the Guardian

Hilma at Centre Pompidou in Paris

Letters between Engla and Hilma

Letters between Engla and Tyra

About Engla

About Hallands Spring Salon

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com.

Närvaro genom tidens lager

Hilma af Klint målade för en framtid hon själv aldrig skulle få se.

När den svenska bildkonstnären dog 1944 var hon övertygad om att världen inte var redo för hennes verk — mystiska, abstrakta målningar som tycktes höra till en annan tid. I stället för att söka erkännande efter att hennes avantgardistiska visioner avfärdats valde hon att dra sig tillbaka. Hennes instruktioner var tydliga: målningarna skulle förbli dolda i minst tjugo år och aldrig säljas.

Idag har den tystnaden till slut brutits.

I Paris, mer än åttio år efter hennes död, får af Klint sin första stora separatutställning i Frankrike. På Grand Palais och Centre Pompidou presenteras hennes monumentala Målningar för templet — skapade som en del av hennes arbete i en andlig kvinnokrets — nu som en hörnsten i den moderna konsten. Det som en gång ansågs obegripligt ses idag som grundläggande.

Men Hilma af Klint var inte ensam.
Hon levde och verkade under samma tid som Tyra Kleen, en annan svensk konstnär som drogs till symbolism, spiritualitet och osynliga världar. De rörde sig i överlappande kretsar och hade kontakt — en del av ett bredare, ofta förbisett nätverk av konstnärer som utforskade idéer som ännu inte hade någon plats i konstens officiella berättelse. Idag visas Tyra Kleens verk i Halmstad, vilket för henne tillbaka i ljuset tillsammans med sina samtida.

Deras berättelser speglar varandra — parallella vägar som historien först nu börjar knyta samman.
Och någonstans mellan dessa rader föreställer jag mig min faster, Engla Hägertz, som rör sig stilla genom tiden. Inte som en historisk figur i samma berättelse, utan som ett vittne av ett annat slag. I min föreställning utbyter hon brev med både Hilma och Tyra — brev som aldrig skickats, men ändå på något sätt mottagits. De skriver om ljus, om symboler, om bildens märkliga uthållighet.

I en tänkt anteckning kanske Hilma erkänner sitt tvivel: ”Kommer de någonsin att förstå?”
Och Tyra, kanske från en annan ateljé, svarar: ”Förståelsen är inte vår att avgöra.”
Engla, med sin kamera och sin tålmodiga blick, observerar bara — medveten om att vissa bilder måste vänta innan de kan ses.

Idag träder också hon fram i ljuset. Engla är nu en del av Novisalis utställning på Hallands konstmuseum och medverkar i Hallands Vårsalong, där dåtid och nutid möts i en stilla dialog. Och detta är inte slutet — en kommande utställning med Novisali och Engla kommer att annonseras senare, vilket förlänger denna dialog över tid ännu mer.

Nu, i Paris och Halmstad, mellan museer och imaginära brev, känns det som om den långa väntan har nått sitt slut.
Eller kanske, mer sanningsenligt —
har den just börjat.

References

Om Hilma i Guardian

Hilma på Centre Pompidou i Paris

Brev mellan Engla och Hilma

Brev mellan Engla och Tyra

Om Engla

Om Hallands Vårsalong  

Om Novisali 

Novisali (alias Liselotte Engstam) är, vid sidan av sina roller som professionell styrelseledamot och rådgivare, en multimediakonstnär med ett nyfiket och utforskande sinne.
Hon strävar efter att lära och utvidga konstupplevelser för både nuvarande och nya publikgrupper, genom att använda både traditionella och nya digitala medier.

Mer information och utställningar finns på Novisali.com.
Detta blogginlägg delas också på www.liselotteengstam.com.

The post Mapping Presence Across Time / Närvaro genom tidens lager first appeared on Novisali.

(Läs blogposts på svenska HÄR)

In an ongoing artistic exploration, I have imagined fictional correspondences between Engla Hägertz and other artistic voices from her time. Earlier, such imagined dialogues emerged between Engla Hägertz and Hilma af Klint, and between Engla and the Halmstad Group.

In this text, the focus turns toward a new possible meeting — between Engla Hägertz and Tyra Kleen.

As an artist, I have long been fascinated by how images can carry memory, emotion, and meaning across time. In this exploration, I have repeatedly felt a quiet kinship with Engla Hägertz, my father’s aunt, and Tyra Kleen — two creative women who, in different ways, worked close to the threshold between the visible and the inner world.

One worked from a photographic studio in Halland, letting light shape portraits, flowers, industrial settings and everyday rooms. The other moved between continents and expressed herself through drawing, writing, photography, symbolism, and studies of movement and ritual. Their lives most likely never crossed, yet their ways of seeing the world suggest a possible resonance.

This project is not a historical claim, but a poetic possibility. An imagined correspondence, with a reflective exploration of what might have been shared if two independent women — one working with camera and light, the other with line, symbol, and movement — had found one another along their parallel paths in early twentieth-century Sweden and beyond.

It is also an invitation to reflect on the subtle threads that can connect artistic experience across generations, forms of expression, and different ways of seeing. In these imagined letters, I hear not only echoes of their worlds, but also questions that continue to live in my own creative practice — and perhaps in yours as well.

— Novisali

Parallel Lives, Resonant Visions

Engla Hägertz and Tyra Kleen belonged to different artistic worlds, yet their lives overlapped in ways that invite reflection. One worked from a photographic studio in Halland, shaping portraits, flowers, and fleeting moments through light. The other crossed geographical and artistic boundaries, drawing, writing, and studying the symbolic, spiritual, and ritual dimensions of life.

Engla Hägertz

Engla Hägertz was a photographer and studio owner in Oskarström, Halland. Together with her sister Gudrun, she opened a photographic studio in 1914 and created portraits of local townspeople, families, and everyday life. Alongside this work, she also turned her attention toward flowers, landscapes, and quieter image studies, some of which later became postcards.

Her images often carry a sense of attentive stillness — a gentleness toward what might otherwise pass unnoticed. Light falls softly across faces, hands, and rooms, and the spaces in between are allowed to speak as much as what is visible. In her hands, photography became more than documentation; it became a way of holding presence and allowing the everyday to open toward something more contemplative.

Tyra Kleen

Tyra Kleen was an artist, writer, and traveller whose work moved between symbolism, illustration, spiritual inquiry, and cross-cultural study. She worked in international settings and travelled, among other places, to Paris, Java, Bali, US, Amsterdam and Egypt, where she studied dance, ritual, and bodily expression and exhibited her artwork.

Through books such as En Psykesaga, through her drawings, and through her travel writings, she sought to capture what lies beneath the surface — movement, soulfulness, atmosphere, and transformation. Her lines are often spare yet charged, and the empty space around them becomes part of the expression.

A Possible Nearness

There is no evidence that Engla and Tyra ever met, yet their lives suggest a quiet imaginative nearness. Both lived independently for periods of their lives and shaped their artistic paths on their own terms at a time when such possibilities for women were still limited. Both also seem to have looked beyond the visible toward something more subtle: mood, presence, and the inner life of form.

One worked in stillness with light slowly falling across the motifs of everyday life. The other followed movement, symbols, and cultural expressions across continents. And yet their sensibilities may be imagined to meet in a shared attentiveness — a listening for what has not yet fully taken form.

If They Had Written to One Another

If Engla had written to Tyra, it might have begun with quiet admiration — a letter from Oskarström to a more established artist whose work gave form to what could not easily be expressed. She might have asked how one remains faithful to one’s way of seeing when the surrounding world does not yet have language for it. She might have enclosed a photograph: a sister by the studio door, flowers by a window, a figure half-turned in garden light.

Tyra, in turn, might have replied not with certainty, but with recognition. She might have sent a drawing instead of an explanation — a dancer’s gesture, a branch with unfinished leaves, a symbolic figure at a threshold. Her reply might have affirmed that art does not need to explain all that it knows. Sometimes it is enough to remain attentive, and to trust what quietly wishes to be seen.

Their imagined letters would likely not have been loud or declarative. They would have moved slowly. They would have listened as much as they spoke.

They might have touched on grief, solitude, the discipline of making, travel, memory, and the strange responsibility that comes with working in images. They might have explored how photography can hold what is almost gone, while drawing can suggest what has not yet fully arrived.

And even though one worked with light caught in a lens and the other with lines shaped by hand, their sensibilities could still have met in a shared understanding:

Look closely. Create faithfully. Let stillness speak. Trust what moves beneath the visible.

When Light Travels Quietly

An Imaginary Exchange of Letters between Engla Hägertz and Tyra Kleen

Some exchanges leave no physical traces, yet seem to unfold naturally over time.
Between a photographer shaping stillness and an artist drawing inner journeys, one may imagine letters traveling quietly between Nordic studio light and distant horizons filled with movement.
Their exchange is less about biography and more about attention — how we see, how we remember, how images carry presence.

Spring 1914 — A Room at the Beginning

Engla writes

Dear Tyra,

I hope you will forgive a letter from someone you have never met. But sometimes one writes not because of acquaintance, but because of recognition.

My sister and I have just taken over a photographic studio in Oskarström. The house is carved in wood, and the windows gather the sky in a soft, diffused way. When the morning light enters, it moves slowly across the floor, as if first measuring the room before settling.

There is something deeply moving about stepping into a place that has not yet learned its rhythm. The chairs stand slightly apart, the backdrop is still folded, and the walls seem to listen rather than speak.

I enclose a small photograph of my sister and me outside the studio. We sit without pose or intention — simply present before something that is beginning. It is not a finished image, but perhaps beginnings rarely are.

Photography is often described as mechanical, yet I increasingly experience it as a form of listening.
Each portrait becomes a meeting between two silences — the sitter’s and my own. Somewhere between them something arises that neither of us planned.

I have read your En Psykesaga and often return to its inward tone. You wrote about paths that appear only as one walks them. This studio feels like such a path — one that must slowly unfold through attention rather than certainty.

Do you think the rooms we work in shape what we see? Or do we gradually shape them through the way we notice?

With quiet admiration,
Engla Hägertz
(Oskarström, 1914)

Tyra replies

Dear Engla,

Your letter reached me in my studio in Rome, where the light falls differently than in the north. Here the day moves quickly between the sharp streaks of the skylights, but when I read your words about the quiet morning light in Oskarström, I felt an unexpected recognition. There is something universal about rooms not yet filled with work — they carry an openness that is almost spiritual.

The photograph you enclosed of you and your sister holds this quality. You stand not as subjects but as participants in a moment just taking shape. I especially like how the light falls gently without dominating — it gives the image a tone of waiting.

You write that photography is listening. I recognize this in drawing. When I work with line, I try not to describe the world, but rather to follow a movement already present. In working on En Psykesaga, I often felt that the images arose as if they already existed in the room.

I enclose a small drawing: a window with silhouettes. I wanted to capture the moment when something is just about to reveal itself. Perhaps it is in such moments that our works meet — in what is not yet fully visible.

May your studio slowly fill with presence. And may the light continue to arrive gently.

Warmly,
Tyra Kleen
(Rome, 1914)

Autumn 1917 — What Remains

Engla writes

Dear Tyra,

I write to you in a quieter tone than before. My sister Gudrun is no longer here.

The studio remains, but the rhythm has changed in ways I had not expected.
There are moments when I instinctively turn to speak, only to meet silence.
But this silence is not empty — it carries memory.

I recently developed an older glass plate taken in the garden behind the studio. I stand half turned, as if about to say something to Gudrun. The light touches Gudrun’s white dress, while the rest dissolves softly. It feels less like a portrait and more like an opening.

I enclose a small contact print of the image. Not for likeness, but for the mood it carries.
It reminds me that presence does not disappear; it changes form.

Photography now feels less like capturing a moment and more like holding something fragile that continues beyond the frame.

You have often worked with symbols and inner journeys. Do you think drawing allows memory to move differently than photography? Perhaps drawing breathes, while photography lingers.

With quiet trust,
Engla Hägertz
(Oskarström, 1917)

Tyra replies from New York

Dear Engla,

Your letter reached me after a long journey across the Atlantic, and I still carry it with me.

I now write from New York, where movement is constant and the sounds almost never cease.
Yet in the midst of this speed, I paused when I read about Gudrun.

I am deeply moved by your loss. When someone who has stood so close is suddenly missing, not only life changes, but also one’s gaze. What was once obvious becomes quiet, and in this silence, things appear that one did not previously see.

The photograph you describe — Gudrun in the garden, half turned — feels like an image that does not conclude but continues. It is as if the movement still remains, and perhaps it is there that memory lives most strongly.

During the crossing of the Atlantic, I often thought about how the sea carries both presence and absence. Waves come and disappear without trace, yet the rhythm remains within the one who watches.

Perhaps grief is similar — not something that disappears, but something that changes how one perceives the light.

I enclose a small drawing I made during the journey. A branch with two leaves — one clear, the other only suggested — surrounding a sunflower girl. I deliberately left it unfinished, for sometimes the incomplete allows what is missing to continue breathing.

You write that photography now feels like holding something fragile. I believe you have found a deeper part of your work. It is no longer only the presence of the moment, but what remains afterward.

Here in the city, the light is harsher than at home, but when I think of your studio, I see a soft light falling across the floor. I imagine it now carrying both you and Gudrun, as if the room remembers you both.

May stillness continue to follow your work, and may memory become a gentle companion.

Warmly,
Tyra Kleen
(New York, 1917)

1920 — Movement and Stillness

Engla writes

Dear Tyra,

Summer has brought a light that changes from day to day. Sometimes it is clear and open, sometimes softened as if through a thin veil. I have begun leaving the studio more often to seek this shifting light, yet I always return with the feeling that the quiet room still follows me.

Recently I traveled to the coast. The sea lay almost silver, and the wind moved the grass in slow waves. I tried to photograph not the landscape itself, but the feeling that arose between movement and stillness. It was as if time both moved and stood still at once.

I enclose a photograph from that day. In the foreground the stone becomes a staircase, while the horizon behind remains calm. I also asked a model to carry an oriental parasol, inspired by your stories from your travels. It gave the image another tone, almost like a meeting between places.

When I work, I notice that I increasingly leave space in the image. What is not filled becomes as important as what is seen. Perhaps this is an influence from your drawings, where the line is often surrounded by silence.

I wonder how the movement you encounter where you are affects your way of seeing. Here the landscape moves slowly, almost imperceptibly. Perhaps it is different for you, where gestures and ceremonies carry greater dynamism.

Sometimes I think photography tries to hold a moment, while drawing perhaps follows it further. Yet they seem to meet in attention — the quiet listening before the image itself.

With warm greetings,
Engla
(Oskarström, 1920)

Tyra replies (from Java)

Dear Engla,

Your letter reached me in Batavia here in Java, where the air is heavy with warmth and movement. Everything here seems to carry a rhythm that is both slow and alive, as if time itself breathes differently.

I read your description of the coast with strong recognition, despite the distance between us. You write about grass leaning in the wind while the horizon remains still. Here I see the same meeting between movement and rest, but in the gesture of the human body.

I have spent many hours studying dancers in the temples. Their hands move in precise forms, but between each movement a stillness arises that is almost more important than the gesture itself. It is in this interval that I try to draw.

Your photograph, with the model and the oriental parasol, brought me closer to home than you might imagine. There is something in how you let the light rest around the form that reminds me of how the dancers move through space. The exterior is simple, yet the atmosphere carries something larger.

I enclose a small sketch made during a temple dance. The lines are quick, almost fleeting, for I did not want to capture the movement, but follow it. I left the arms incomplete, so the gesture can continue beyond the paper.

Here the light is different from home. It falls directly and creates sharp shadows, yet within the shadow there is a deep stillness. I believe this is what unites our works — not form, but attention.

You hold movement in stillness through photography. I seek stillness in movement through drawing.
Perhaps they are two paths toward the same center.

When evenings come and the sounds soften, I sometimes think of the Nordic horizons.
There is something in their silence that continues to live even here.

With warm greetings from Java,
Tyra
(Batavia, Java, 1920)

1924 — Images That Travel

Engla writes

Dear Tyra,

Autumn has arrived quietly this year. The light falls lower across the fields, and in the studio the afternoons grow longer and softer. It is a time when I like to work with small arrangements — things that require little, yet still hold an entire atmosphere.

During a recent birthday gathering, some flowers remained on the table after the guests had left. They were not particularly arranged, rather left as they happened to be. But when the light fell through the window, something emerged that felt worth preserving. I took a photograph and let it remain simple, without moving anything.

I enclose this image for you. The flowers stand near the window, and the light fades gently toward the edges. There is something in such moments that feels more like an echo than an instant.

Recently I have allowed some of my flower photographs to be printed as postcards. At first it felt unfamiliar to let the images leave their place and travel onward. I wondered whether the stillness would be lost when repeated. But perhaps it is the opposite — that the image gains a new life in each hand that holds it.

I sometimes think of how your drawings, which move between different places and exhibitions, also change in meeting new viewers. It is as if each gaze adds something, without altering the core.

I also notice that I now leave more space in my images. What is not filled speaks almost as clearly as what is seen. Perhaps this is something that comes with time — a wish to let simplicity carry more.

I wonder how your works are experienced where you are. Do people see the movement in your lines, or do they rest in the stillness between them? It is curious how different paths can lead to the same attention.

With quiet greetings from the studio,
Engla
(Oskarström, 1924)

Tyra replies

Dear Engla,

Your letter reached me here on Lidingö, where I remain for a time before continuing my journey southward. Everything is quiet here, yet within me there is already a movement, as if something is loosening and seeking its way toward another light.

I was especially touched by your photograph from the birthday. The flowers seem not arranged, but rather gathered in the light by themselves. There is something gentle in how you allow the edges to fade, as if the image does not wish to end, but continue in the viewer’s thought.

You ask whether images change as they travel. I believe they do, but not by losing their core. Rather, they gather new layers, as if each gaze leaves a trace. Here I see my drawings in reproductions, and sometimes I experience them as softer, almost more memory-like than the originals.

I enclose a reproduction of one of my dancer sketches from Java. When the lines are printed on paper, their weight changes, yet the movement remains. Perhaps this is what allows images to travel — they carry their silence with them.

Your flowers, sent as postcards, allow stillness to spread from hand to hand. My drawings, hung in exhibition rooms, attempt to bring movement into the same quiet space.

It strikes me that our works move in opposite directions, yet meet at the same point. You allow the everyday to open toward something larger, and I try to let the unfamiliar become still enough to feel close.

As I walk along the water here in the evening light, I think of how water reflects the sky without holding it. Soon, other waters will meet me, other skies be reflected. Perhaps our images function in the same way — they reflect, but do not bind.

With warm greetings,
Tyra
(Amsterdam, 1924) 

1926 — Light and Distance

Engla writes

Dear Tyra,

I have heard that you have traveled south again, to a landscape I know only through stories and images. I imagine a light different from ours — clearer, more direct, yet perhaps also quieter. It is curious how one can sense a place through the way one imagines its light.

Here in the studio, the days have grown calmer. I often work with small arrangements, almost unnoticed. A chair, a few flowers, a window letting in the afternoon. It is as if the simple motifs hold more the longer one stays with them.

I enclose a photograph from such a moment. The flowers stand on a table near the window, and the light falls diagonally across them. The shadows are soft and almost transparent. It felt as if time rested there for a while.

I have begun thinking about how places carry different forms of stillness. Ours is gentle and muted, but I wonder if the stillness of the desert is different — perhaps larger, more open.

When I look at your earlier drawings from travels, they often seem to leave much space around the form. It is as if the empty space is as important as the line. I recognize something of this in photography — what is not filled, yet still speaks.

Sometimes I think that work changes with the years. One searches less for the unusual and more for what already exists, but needs to be noticed.

I wonder how the light in Egypt affects your gaze. Do you see forms more clearly there, or does the empty space grow larger?

With quiet greetings from the studio,
Engla
(Oskarström, 1926)

Tyra replies (from Luxor, Egypt)

Dear Engla,

Your letter reached me in Luxor, where the light falls differently than anywhere else I have been. It is almost white at midday, and the shadows become sharp as drawn lines across the sand. Here the landscape feels both still and infinite, as if time itself has come to rest.

I read your description of the still life in your studio with great reflection. The flowers and chair in your photograph seem to rest in a light that does not hurry, and it reminded me of the temples I have walked through here. Despite their weight and age, they carry a curious lightness, as if each stone is still listening.

I have spent several mornings by the Nile. The water moves slowly, almost imperceptibly, and yet everything nearby changes. It made me think of your images — how they hold stillness, while allowing time to pass through them.

I enclose a drawing made at dawn. A simple horizon line across the desert, and a small bird just lifting. I left large parts of the paper empty, to allow space itself to become part of the image.

Here the colors are few, but the nuances many. The light of the sand changes from hour to hour, and in this restraint there is a stillness that I experience as related to your work. You find it in flowers and rooms; I find it in stone and sky.

When the sun sets behind the mountains, the air becomes cool and quiet. It is then I feel most clearly how travel is not only about moving through space, but about slowly changing one’s gaze. Your photographs seem to do something similar, without leaving their place.

With warm greetings from the banks of the Nile,
Tyra
(Luxor, Egypt, 1926)

Later in Life — Light After Sunset

Engla writes

Dear Tyra,

The days have grown quieter here. The light moves more slowly across the floor — or perhaps it is I who have learned to follow it more carefully. I no longer work as much, yet I often step into the studio anyway, as if to listen.

I have begun placing older photographs on the table, without arranging them. They seem to speak to one another in ways I had not previously noticed. A portrait beside a flower, a hand beside a window, a shadow beside a gaze. It feels less like a collection of images and more like a conversation that has been ongoing for a long time.

Recently I took a photograph in the studio, but this time I turned the camera toward myself. The large wooden construction stands as a quiet frame, and my hands rest upon it, as if still listening for the next image.

It was not planned as a self-portrait. I simply sat for a moment behind the camera and let the shutter fall.

When I later saw the image, it struck me how curious it is to stand both behind and in front of one’s own work. The camera that for so long had been my way of meeting others suddenly became a mirror of the life that had passed through it.

It felt as if time gathered in the image — not in movement, but in a quiet presence where both the work and the person behind it could rest together.

I enclose this photograph for you. Not as a conclusion, but as a quiet greeting. It holds both what has been and what still is.

When I think of your travels — Paris, Java, Egypt, and now Lidingö — it strikes me that our paths have been different, yet the attention the same. You have sought it in movement and symbol; I in light and everyday life.

I believe work changes with the years. One no longer tries to hold the moment, but rather to let it rest. There is a gentleness in what comes with time.

Perhaps this is what I have learned most: that it is not always the clear that remains, but what almost disappears.

With quiet greetings,
Engla
(Oskarström, 1947)

Later in Life — Tyra writes from Lidingö

Dear Engla,

Your latest letter reached me here on Lidingö, where the days have grown slower and the light changes almost imperceptibly from hour to hour. I work less now, but perhaps I listen more. It feels as though time no longer moves forward, but rather spreads outward.

The photograph you enclosed — your image from the studio — stayed with me for a long time. It carries both presence and distance, as if you stand simultaneously within the room and outside it. I think this is how we experience our own lives toward the end — not as a line, but as layers.

I have gone through older drawings. They seem simpler now than when I made them, yet perhaps simplicity was what I sought without knowing it. The forms have become fewer, and the empty space larger.

I enclose an image from my home. I sit at the table, and the flowers stand between the room and the light. Behind me hangs a painting whose surface captures reflections that change with the day.

It is not a dramatic motif — only a quiet presence. I wanted to let the everyday carry what otherwise easily disappears: the light across the wall, the silence of the flowers, the time resting in the room. Most of the image remains untouched, without movement. Precisely for that reason, it felt as though stillness itself became part of the composition.

When I look back at our letters, I think they were never truly about places, even though we wrote from many. They were about attention — about holding what almost disappears.

You have done this through the light in your photographs. I have tried through line. And somewhere they meet.

I do not believe the work disappears when we leave it. It continues as a quiet resonance — in someone who pauses, in someone who sees a little more slowly. That is enough.

With warm greetings,
Tyra
(Villa Brevik, Lidingö, 1947)

Prelude

Some letters are never written, yet their echoes remain.
They arise in the quiet spaces between images, in the pause before a line is drawn, in the soft light that settles across a studio floor. What is never sent may still travel — carried not by envelopes, but by attention, memory, and a shared sensitivity to the world.

Between photography and drawing, between Oskarström and Lidingö, a quiet conversation continues. It moves across years and landscapes — from northern studio windows to distant horizons, from the stillness of arranged flowers to the gesture of a hand in motion. Each image becomes a letter of its own, each line and shadow a response.

What binds them is not proximity, but presence. A way of seeing that lingers. A willingness to notice what almost disappears. In this silent exchange, light becomes language, and time becomes a gentle messenger.

And so the dialogue endures — not in words alone, but in the spaces between them — where light travels quietly through time.

References

About Engla Hägertz

Hägertz Glass Plates at Oskarströms Hembygdsförening

Tyra Kleen at Svenskt Kvinnobiografiskt Lexikon

Välinege Gard About Tyra Kleen 

Masteruppsats om Tyra Kleen

Book about Tyra Kleen

Exhibitions

Tyra Kleen – Always Searching at Hallands Konsmuseum

Related Blogposts

Earlier Blogposts with imaginary Letter Exchanges and artifacts

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com.

The post An Imagined Exchange, a Quiet Kinship first appeared on Novisali.

(på svenska nedan)

Still life is often described as quiet.
But when you spend time with objects long enough, they begin to speak.

This week’s work was not about capturing a moment, but about building one — arranging, waiting, adjusting light until something unseen settled into place. The image emerges slowly. Almost reluctantly. And then, at some point, it feels as if the objects recognise one another.

I chose to work with objects from my mother’s family — the Lindahl clergy family of northern Sweden. Three images became three small constellations. Not portraits of people, but traces of lives once lived.

1 — Grandma Märta and Stillness

On a brass tray rest books, a hymnbook, and small personal fragments carefully kept over time — a lock of hair, a confirmation handkerchief, a harmonica once played. Objects touched often, then slowly left to rest.

The light is soft and warm. Nothing moves.
The image holds a kind of stillness where time feels suspended, as if memory itself has slowed down.

2 — Grandpa Allan and Time

The second image is darker. An old clock made by my grandfather stands at the centre, surrounded by tools, books, a key from a church long served by his grandpa, and objects shaped by hands accustomed to work.

Shadows play a larger role here. Time is present not as passing, but as accumulation — in surfaces worn smooth, in objects repaired rather than replaced. Even the small stones carry uncertainty, believed once to be fragments of a meteorite.

Some stories remain unresolved. Perhaps that is why they endure.

3 — Blanche and Tradition

The third image carries traces of Sámi culture through objects given to my mother’s aunt Blanche during her years as a teacher. A small toy sled, a reindeer leather purse, a drinking cup  (kåsa), a decorated Sámi knife.

These objects speak of craftsmanship and exchange — of lives meeting across cultures. The image is grounded, close to the earth, shaped by materials that age slowly and remain useful long after their makers are gone.

Light as Continuation

Looking at the three images afterwards, one element returns quietly: light.

Not dramatic light, but a presence. A small persistence.
Something that continues.

Both my grandparents belonged for a time to the Rosicrucian Order, where contemplation and symbolism held an important place. Without intending it, the still lifes began to resemble small reflective spaces — not religious, but attentive. Places where objects are allowed to hold memory.

The images became less about documentation and more about listening. About an invisible inheritance — the sense that meaning moves through generations, sometimes silently, carried forward in ordinary things.

It is striking how much life can remain in objects that no longer move.

References and Further Reading

The Lindahl Family
The Lindahl clergy family of northern Sweden forms the historical background to several of the objects included in the images.
Lindahl Family Association – History

Rosicrucian Order
The Rosicrucian Order is a philosophical and symbolic tradition rooted in European mysticism and contemplative thought.
Rosicrucianism – Overview

Family References
Märta Lindahl
Allan Lindahl
Rudolf Lindahl
Björn-Olle Lindahl

Related Stories

Seeing More Slowly
Upcoming Exhibition – Inspiring Photography

När föremål börjar tala

En fördjupning i stilleben

Stilleben beskrivs ofta som stilla.
Men när man tillbringar tillräckligt lång tid med föremål börjar de tala.

Veckans fördjupningar handlade inte om att fånga ett ögonblick, utan om att bygga ett — att arrangera, vänta och justera ljuset tills något osynligt föll på plats. Bilden växer fram långsamt. Nästan motvilligt. Och någonstans längs vägen uppstår en känsla av att föremålen börjar känna igen varandra.

Jag valde att arbeta med föremål från min mammas släkt — den Lindahlska prästsläkten i norra Sverige. Tre bilder blev till tre små konstellationer. Inte porträtt av människor, utan spår av levda liv.

1 — Mormor Märta och stillheten

På en mässingsbricka vilar böcker, en psalmbok och små personliga fragment som bevarats över tid — en hårlock, en konfirmationsnäsduk, ett munspel som en gång spelats. Föremål som ofta hållits i händer, och sedan långsamt fått vila.

Ljuset är mjukt och varmt. Ingenting rör sig.
Bilden bär en stillhet där tiden tycks upphävd, som om själva minnet har saktat in.

2 — Morfar Allan och tiden

Den andra bilden är mörkare. I centrum står en gammal klocka tillverkad av min morfar, omgiven av verktyg, böcker, en nyckel från en kyrka där hans farfar en gång tjänstgjorde, och föremål formade av händer vana vid arbete.

Skuggorna får större utrymme här. Tiden framträder inte som något som passerar, utan som något som samlas — i ytor som slitits mjuka, i saker som lagats istället för att ersättas. Även de små stenarna bär på en osäkerhet, en gång trodda vara fragment från ett meteoritnedslag.

Vissa berättelser förblir ofullständiga. Kanske är det därför de består.

3 — Faster Blanche och traditionen

Den tredje bilden bär spår av samisk kultur genom föremål som min mammas faster Blanche fick under sina år som lärare. En liten leksakssläde, en penningpung i renskinn, en kåsa och en dekorerad samekniv.

Föremålen berättar om hantverk och utbyte — om liv som möts mellan kulturer. Bilden är jordnära, nära materialen, formad av sådant som åldras långsamt och förblir användbart långt efter att dess skapare gått vidare.

Ljuset som fortsättning

När jag ser på bilderna i efterhand är det ett element som stilla återkommer: ljuset.

Inte ett dramatiskt ljus, utan en närvaro. En lågmäld uthållighet.
Något som fortsätter.

Både min mormor och morfar tillhörde under en period Rosencreutzarorden, där det kontemplativa och symboliska hade en viktig plats. Utan att det var avsikten började stillebenen likna små rum för eftertanke — inte religiösa, men uppmärksamma. Platser där föremål får bära minne.

Bilderna kom därför att handla mindre om dokumentation och mer om lyssnande. Om ett osynligt arv — känslan av att mening rör sig genom generationer, ibland stilla, buren vidare i vardagliga ting.

Det är slående hur mycket liv som kan finnas kvar i föremål som inte längre rör sig.

Referenser och Mer 

Lindhalska släkten
Den Lindhalska prästsläkten i norra Sverige utgör den historiska bakgrunden till flera av föremålen i bilderna.
Lindahl släktförening – historik

Märta Lindahl
Allan Lindahl
Rudolf Lindahl
Björn-Olle Lindahl

Rosencreutzarorden
Rosencreutzarorden är en filosofisk och symbolisk tradition med rötter i europeisk mystik och kontemplation.
Rosenkreuzarna – översikt

Relaterade Historier 

Att se mer långsamt 

Kommande utställning Inspirerade Fotografier 

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com, with the artist name Novisali.

The post When Objects Begin to Speak/ När föremål börjar tala first appeared on Novisali.

(På Svenska Nedan)

I am currently attending a photography program, not primarily to learn how to take better photographs, but to rediscover how to see. Under the guidance of photographer Robert Wållberg, we are encouraged to approach photography more consciously — exploring composition, light, atmosphere, and the small decisions that transform an image from documentation into expression.

A central part of the work is image analysis. At first, this may sound technical, but it is in fact deeply reflective. To analyse an image is to pause and ask: What am I really seeing? Why does this image feel the way it does?

Image analysis becomes a way of slowing down perception. By reflecting on content, form, process, and mood, the inner structure of the photograph gradually reveals itself — how meaning is created through light, balance, color, and intention. Photography then becomes not only a way of capturing a moment, but a dialogue with the image itself.

The benefit is subtle but significant. You begin to understand not only what works, but why. Photography becomes less about technique and more about awareness — storytelling through attention.

Photography as a Way of Understanding

People who know me well know that photography has always been part of my life. I have always taken many photographs — not necessarily with the intention of creating art, but as a way of observing, remembering, and understanding. Perhaps photography has been one of my ways of learning about the world, about the people I meet, and about the events and moments I experience.

This fascination is also connected to my great-aunt Engla Hägertz, one of Sweden’s early photographers, who created tens of thousands of glass plates during her lifetime. I have long been fascinated not only by the historical periods she lived through, but also by her personal development as a photographer — how she observed people, documented lives, and how photography became both a technical and deeply human practice. Returning to photography now feels, in many ways, like continuing a conversation that began long before me.

When photography was first introduced in the nineteenth century, many artists expressed concern that art itself was now dead. If reality could be captured mechanically, what role would painting still have? History showed the opposite. Rather than ending art, photography liberated it. Painting moved toward impressionism, abstraction, and new forms of expression, while photography itself evolved into an artistic medium. Instead of replacing one another, both photography and art expanded. This moment in history reminds us that new technologies rarely end creative expression — they tend to widen it.

A Journey into Vintage Time

One of our assignments explored vintage photography — the attempt to recreate or interpret a historical aesthetic through contemporary images. By working with older objects, environments, and editing techniques, the task was not to imitate the past, but to understand how atmosphere is created. How light softens memory. How color fades into time. How composition shapes emotion.

For this exercise, I worked with three different setups, two of them connected to antique cameras from different eras.

The first setup was built around an older large-format camera used for glass plate photography. The glass plates carry images of my grandfather, my father, and his siblings from the late 1920s. Through sepia tones, softened contrasts, and layered imagery, the photograph became less a document and more a carrier of memory. I placed my great-aunt Engla Hägertz — who herself took many of these photographs — into the composition in miniature form, allowing the photographer and the photographed to meet across time.

The second setup centered around a camera from the 1940s, surrounded by cabinet photographs that I recently purchased in Paris. Engla appears here as well, now at an older age. The circular composition and muted palette create a quiet continuity, where the camera becomes a bridge between past and present. The image revealed how form, content, and atmosphere must work together for a story to emerge.

The third setup became more personal. Books, photo albums, a painted image of myself, and a small figure of my father as a child together with my grandmother formed a still life where memory and creation meet. Here, photography moved closer to reflection — less about history itself and more about how memory continues to shape us.

The Same Exploration Across Mediums

This process did not surprise me. I have long known that these approaches are closely connected to how I work as an artist. Rather, the photography exercise confirmed something I have experienced for a long time — that watercolor, photography, and digital transformation are different expressions of the same exploration.

In watercolor, I often begin with something observed and allow water and pigment to soften certainty. The image becomes less about describing reality and more about holding a moment in transition. When I later reimagine these works digitally or create living extensions through movement and light, I continue the same inquiry: how images can carry multiple layers of time, memory, and interpretation.

Working with photography allows me to return to my own artistic process with renewed awareness. The analytical perspective makes visible how atmosphere, balance, and emotion emerge — and how these qualities can move between mediums. In this sense, learning flows in both directions: from photography into art, and from art back into photography.

Photography and Art as Dialogue Across Time

Through these explorations, I return again to a recurring theme in my work as Novisali: the space between times. Photography, like watercolor and digital art, allows past and present to coexist. Technology, memory, and imagination meet within the same visual space.

Learning to see more slowly does not only change how images are made. It changes how we relate to what we see — and to what continues to emerge between the images themselves.

Perhaps the question is not only how we take a photograph, but what we begin to see when we allow ourselves to pause long enough.

References & Inspirations

This reflection draws on artists, writers, and thinkers who explore how images shape perception, how time lives within memory, and how art allows us to remain present within moments of transition. The following works have informed the thinking behind seeing more slowly — across photography, philosophy, and visual art.

Seeing — Attention and Perception

Robert Wållberg, Photographer – On Flickr
John Berger — Ways of Seeing
On how seeing precedes interpretation, and how meaning emerges through attention, context, and perspective.
Project Zero, Harvard Graduate School of Education — Artful Thinking Project
Research exploring slow looking and reflective observation as practices that deepen understanding and engagement with images.

Time — Duration and Presence

Henri Bergson — Stanford Encyclopedia of Philosophy
Bergson’s philosophy of duration describes time as lived continuity rather than measurable moments, resonating with photography’s layered sense of time.
Andrei Tarkovsky — Sculpting in Time
On art as a way of shaping and holding time, allowing past and present to coexist within a single image.

Memory — Photography and Meaning

Roland Barthes — Camera Lucida
A meditation on photography as the presence of what has been, where images carry memory, absence, and emotional resonance.
Marginalian on Susan Sontag — On Photography
Photography as interpretation rather than neutral documentation, shaped by framing and intention.

Related by Novisali

Echoes of Presence
Angles: The Silent Shifts of Perspective
Patterns and Forms: The Hidden Language Around Us
The Language of Shapes
When Nature Abstracts Itself
Close-Up: The Art of Seeing the Unseen
The Art of Balance — Details, Close-Up, and Symmetry

When Quiet Visionaries Speak
In the Silence Between Images 

Att se långsammare — om fotografi, tid och bildanalys

Jag deltar just nu i en fotokurs, inte i första hand för att lära mig ta bättre fotografier, utan för att återupptäcka hur man ser. Under ledning av fotografen Robert Wållberg uppmuntras vi att närma oss fotografi mer medvetet — att utforska komposition, ljus, stämning och de små val som förvandlar en bild från dokumentation till uttryck.

En central del i arbetet är bildanalys. Det kan först låta tekniskt, men är i grunden något djupt reflekterande. Att analysera en bild är att stanna upp och fråga: Vad är det jag egentligen ser? Varför känns bilden som den gör?

Bildanalys blir ett sätt att sakta ner seendet. Genom att reflektera över innehåll, form, process och humör börjar fotografiets inre struktur framträda — hur mening skapas genom ljus, balans, färg och intention. Fotografiet blir då inte bara ett sätt att fånga ett ögonblick, utan en dialog med bilden själv.

Vinsten är subtil men betydelsefull. Man börjar förstå inte bara vad som fungerar, utan varför. Fotografi blir mindre teknik och mer medvetenhet. Ett berättande genom uppmärksamhet.

Fotografiet som ett sätt att förstå

De som känner mig vet att fotografi alltid har funnits med i mitt liv. Jag har alltid tagit många bilder — inte nödvändigtvis med ambitionen att skapa konst, utan som ett sätt att observera, minnas och förstå. Kanske har fotografiet varit ett av mina sätt att lära känna världen, människorna jag möter och de händelser jag upplever.

Denna fascination hänger också samman med min gammelfaster Engla Hägertz, en av Sveriges tidiga fotografer, som skapade tiotusentals glasplåtar under sin livstid. Jag har länge fascinerats inte bara av de historiska tider hon levde igenom, utan också av hennes egen utveckling som fotograf — hur hon betraktade människor, dokumenterade liv och hur fotografiet blev både en teknisk och djupt mänsklig praktik. Att återvända till fotografiet idag känns på många sätt som att fortsätta en pågående dialog.

När fotografiet introducerades under 1800-talet uttryckte många konstnärer en oro för att konsten nu var död. Om verkligheten kunde avbildas mekaniskt, vilken roll skulle måleriet då ha? Historien visade motsatsen. Istället för att avsluta konsten frigjorde fotografiet den. Måleriet rörde sig mot impressionism, abstraktion och nya uttrycksformer, samtidigt som fotografiet själv utvecklades till ett konstnärligt medium. Istället för att ersätta varandra expanderade både fotografi och konst. Denna historiska rörelse påminner oss om att nya tekniker sällan avslutar skapande — de vidgar det.

En resa in i vintage och tid

En av kursens uppgifter handlade om vintagefotografi — att återskapa eller tolka en historisk estetik genom samtida bilder. Genom att arbeta med äldre föremål, miljöer och redigeringstekniker handlade uppgiften inte om att imitera det förflutna, utan om att förstå hur stämning uppstår. Hur ljus mjukar upp minnet. Hur färg bleknar över tid. Hur komposition formar känsla.

I denna övning arbetade jag med tre olika uppsättningar, två av dem kopplade till antika kameror från olika tidsåldrar.

Den första uppsättningen utgick från en äldre storformatskamera för glasplåtsfotografi. Glasplåtarna bär bilder av min farfar, min pappa och hans syskon från slutet av 1920-talet. Genom sepiafärgade toner, mjuka kontraster och överlagrade bildlager blev fotografiet mindre ett dokument och mer en bärare av minne. Jag placerade in min gammelfaster Engla Hägertz — som själv tog många av bilderna — i miniatyrformat, så att fotografen och de fotograferade kunde mötas över tid.

Den andra uppsättningen kretsade kring en kamera från 1940-talet, omgiven av kabinettfotografier som jag nyligen köpt i Paris. Här framträder Engla igen, nu i högre ålder. Den cirkulära kompositionen och den dämpade färgskalan skapar en stillsam kontinuitet där kameran fungerar som en bro mellan dåtid och nutid. Bilden visade hur form, innehåll och stämning behöver samspela för att en berättelse ska uppstå.

Den tredje uppsättningen blev mer personlig. Böcker, fotoalbum, en målad bild av mig och en liten figur av min pappa som barn tillsammans med min farmor bildade ett stilleben där minne och skapande möts. Här närmade sig fotografiet reflektion — mindre om historien i sig och mer om hur minnet fortsätter att forma oss.

Samma utforskande i olika medier

Denna process överraskade mig inte. Jag vet sedan länge att dessa arbetssätt är nära förbundna med hur jag arbetar som konstnär. Snarare bekräftade fotografiövningen något jag länge upplevt — att akvarell, fotografi och digital transformation är olika uttryck för samma utforskande.

I akvarellen börjar jag ofta med något observerat och låter vatten och pigment mjuka upp det självklara. Bilden handlar mindre om att beskriva verkligheten och mer om att hålla ett ögonblick i förändring. När jag senare omtolkar verken digitalt eller skapar levande förlängningar genom rörelse och ljus fortsätter samma undersökning: hur bilder kan bära flera lager av tid, minne och tolkning.

Arbetet med fotografi gör att jag kan återvända till mitt eget konstnärliga arbete med ny medvetenhet. Analysen synliggör hur stämning, balans och känsla uppstår — och hur dessa kvaliteter kan röra sig mellan olika medier. Lärandet går därför i båda riktningar: från fotografi till konst, och från konsten tillbaka till fotografiet.

Fotografiet och Konst som dialog över tid

Genom dessa utforskanden återkommer jag till ett återkommande tema i mitt arbete som Novisali: mellanrummet mellan tider. Fotografi, liksom akvarell och digital konst, gör det möjligt för dåtid och nutid att samexistera. Teknik, minne och föreställning möts i samma bildrum.

Att lära sig se långsammare förändrar inte bara hur bilder skapas. Det förändrar hur vi förhåller oss till det vi ser — och till det som fortsätter att växa fram mellan bilderna.

Kanske är frågan inte bara hur vi tar en bild, utan vad vi egentligen börjar se när vi stannar upp tillräckligt länge?

References & Inspirations

Denna reflektion bygger på konstnärer, författare och tänkare som på olika sätt utforskar hur bilder formar vår perception, hur tid lever vidare i minnet och hur konsten gör det möjligt för oss att förbli närvarande i stunder av förändring. Följande verk har inspirerat tankarna bakom att se långsammare — i mötet mellan fotografi, filosofi och bildkonst. Se de faktiska referenserna i engelska delen.

Related by Novisali

Echoes of Presence
Angles: The Silent Shifts of Perspective
Patterns and Forms: The Hidden Language Around Us
The Language of Shapes
When Nature Abstracts Itself
Close-Up: The Art of Seeing the Unseen
The Art of Balance — Details, Close-Up, and Symmetry

When Quiet Visionaries Speak
In the Silence Between Images 

About Novisali 

Novisali, (alias Liselotte Engstam), is besides her roles as professional board member and advisor, a multi-media artist, with a curious, explorative mind and an ambition to learn and extend art experiences to current and new audiences using both traditional and new digital mediums. More information and exhibitions can be found via Novisali.com

This blog post is also shared at the blog of www.liselotteengstam.com, with the artist name Novisali.

The post Seeing More Slowly / Att Se med Långsamhet first appeared on Novisali.