Null and Void Books

Mussels by Märta Thisner

-In the Shell with Åsa Jungnelius

Poem by Tone Schunnesson

Mussels is a portrait by photographer Märta Thisner of artist Åsa Jungnelius in her natural habitat. Thisner is present as the seeds are being sown in Jungnelius’ studio and when they’re harvested in her garden in Månsamåla or at the glass-works in Kosta. In the photographs: a not-quite-feral cat, a thinned forest, a unique sculpture with an inner universe. The living encounter 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 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-lifes 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 the country, 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.

Tone Schunnesson, Swedish author and playwright, has contributed with a poem from the deep forest.

Märta Thisner is a Stockholm-based photographer. Since finishing photography school in Stockholm and in the UK, she has developed a noticeable aesthetic while capturing some of Sweden’s most captivating personalities. Thisner’s ability to capture a moment has made her a sought-after photographer in many industries, both commercial and creative. She approaches her subjects with respect and empowerment, highlighting their most human and sympathetic features while creating immersive portraits. Thisner has previously published Baby (Puss Publications & Sailor Press, 2023) and Drunk in Love (Journal, 2019).

Forty Viewpoints in Seven Instances on the Reconstruction of Two Environments by Björn Lövin by Peo Olsson

With essays by Björn Larsson, Lila Lee-Morrison and Lívia Nolasco-Rózsás.

This book contains photographs whose origins and domicile are under negotiation. The basis of the project is made of the original archive photographs of a series of exhibitions by installation artist Björn Lövin in the 70s and 80s, via images from a digital reconstruction of the same exhibits and ending with documentary photographs from a physical reconstruction process at Moderna Museet in Sweden in 2022.

Taking place between the covers of this book is a kind of photographic dissolution and recollection which is the result of many years of researching Björn Lövin’s world. An encounter between visual documentation from different places—from the archives, via a reconstruction in a digital space and back to the physical. The ”image of” moves between different materialities and places, both mental and mechanical. Less accessible spaces that through the images’ existence can iibe demonstrated and be imagined. What does the image look like after being transfered?

The documentation process raised questions about the inherent characteristics of photography, the photographic layers and their relation to each other. When transported, the photographic imprint, its indexicality, is stretched and adjusted, doubling back in the end. While the focus has been on Björn Lövin’s environments, there has at the same time been a dissolution of some of the basic premises of photography: form, thought, meaning change places with light, reflection, glow. And back again.

Björn Lövin’s (1937–2009) multi-faceted body of work consists of installations, paintings, sculptures, texts and videos. Through his environments, which have previously been presented at institutions such as Moderna Museet and Kulturhuset in Stockholm, and Centre Pompidou in Paris, he became one of Sweden’s first installation artists.

Peo Olsson is a Swedish photographer. In his work he focuses on processes of change and the human condition. The archive or collection is often a point of departure in his works, examining time, memory and the self. He often works collaboratively with other artists and across different media. His first book, Umbra Hominis, was published in 2014.

10 titles from Null & Void Books