Martin BogrenPassenger

“A major figure in contemporary Swedish photography, Martin Bogren is developing a body of work in which the personal and poetic dimension is asserting itself with a practice of photography that is part of a form of initiatory journey. Although the photographs in Passenger were taken in India during several stays in Calcutta, they should not be seen as an Indian chronicle.

It is something else entirely, a form of wandering, which is not limited to a geographical journey, a test of distance or confrontation with an unknown environment and culture, a change of scenery.

The photographer delivers a set where a form of abandonment, of letting go, pierces through, which he translates with harsh or dreamlike images. His photographs emerge as subjective visions that reveal ambivalence, angelic or monstrous figures, lightness and violence. For the first time, he integrates colour into his work, which he alternates with great consistency with his black and white approach. As a way of developing a language that allows him to experience the world and himself.

These photographs were taken in Calcutta between 2018 and 2020; b/w photos.