Leif Strengell – Out of History

Every one need museums as fact banks, watering holes and mirrors to understand and create their own interpretation of what is happening in the world with strong changes in different directions. What can be learned from the physical memory fragments of history?

Despite the fact that flow of information is now constantly very close on different platforms, I want to say that the task and mission of the museums is now more important than ever!

In a museum environment, the flow and time, like art, is much slower than the rushing surrounding world.
When I created the series ”Den Andra Sjön” (The Other Lake), I worked with fears, escape, ”forest guardism” and Ostrobothnian pacifism. Stories about, among other things, ”Munsala radicalism” from 1917 and the flight from the continuation war in 1941–1944 gave birth to invisible, unspoken comparisons with what is happening near us right now with people fleeing war and oppression. Where do you find security and peace? Here, for me, the forest becomes an obvious motif to support the parallel historical stories…

I am interested in classical beauty with all that it means in terms of composition, lighting, play of contrasts and rich values. But at the same time, I’m just as interested in substantive background stories. It is the fact-based stories that drive and nourish my creation. It is not the superficial, quickly ascertained beauty that is primarily of interest, even though it may seem so at first glance of my images.

My pictures live a separate, visual life which should also be able to radiate its own visuality where the viewer’s imagination may also be attracted to a completely different direction in relation to my supporting stories.

The technique I work with is photogravure via industrially prepared or self-laminated photopolymer plates. The technique is somewhat cumbersome where you force yourself into a slower process where the reverence for the image / photo is accentuated.