PHOTO/ “From back home” Petersen/Engström, Galerie VU

Anders Petersen est né en 1944 à Stockholm. A 14 ans il déménage avec sa famille à Karlstad dans le Varmland.
En 1966 il rencontre Christer Strömholm qui enseigne à l’Ecole de photographie de Stockholm où il étudie et ils deviennent amis. Son travail en sera influencé pour la vie. En 2003 et 2004 il enseigne à l’école de photographie et de cinéma de Göteborg. Il expose régulièrement et presque chaque année depuis 1967. Il est présent dans des collections en Suède, Allemagne, Suisse, Danemark, France et aux Etats Unis.
http://www.anderspetersen.se/

JH Engström est né en 1969 à Karlstad, Varmland, Suède. Il grandit en Suède mais passe beaucoup de temps en France et à Paris durant son enfance et son adolescence. Il a été l’assistant de Mario Testino en 1991 à Paris et en 1993 de Anders Petersen à Stockholm. 
En 1997 il est diplômé de L’Ecole de photographie et de cinéma de Göteborg.
http://www.jhengstrom.com/

I like to look.
I want to have the innocent eyes of a child
and look at the world for the first time.
I noticed I have a growing demand for being doglike and primitive.
Someone photographing his experiences and memories
on the fringes of identity, before they become harder.
Well understanding you find more creative vitamins in dirt on earth
than mingling with angels in the sky.
Usually I don’t take pictures looking for reality.
The reality is overrated and means so many lovely and
contradictory things.
But obviously, I like this confusion.
It’s a kind of platform allowing your belly
to have a good time and I found out
it helps a little,
being shy and small.
Photography is never about photography,
but sometimes it lightly touches your reality.
I believe what I feel and if you illuminate it through
yourself it can sometimes be a way to capture life as
close as selfportraits.
Never riskless, absolutely stimulating
To me there are encounters that matter,
pictures are less important.
You simply have to find your own act of balance,not being
sentimental and disappearing in these meetings
and love affairs.
You need one foot inside the situation,
but the other one outside.
So I keep trying without manners asking the same questions
knowing there is more hidden than visible.
Always surprised by the unpredictable

Anders Petersen, texte pour l’exposition “ça me touche”, Les Rencontres d’Arles, 2009