shashasha

“To listen. To actually listen. To move with something and to be moved.”

The Swedish photographer Julia Hetta photographed the images in this book on the Swedish island of Fårö in the Baltic Sea, in close collaboration with her friend, the artist Åsa Stenerhag. Her (mostly) black-and-white photographs in “Island” depict their subjects—from trees (the branches, leaves, trunks of trees), rocks (the shapes, layers, textures of rock), human beings (the faces, hair, expressions, clothes of human beings)—both in relation to one another and with a more singular focus.

“To be patient and curious enough to slowly get to know something from the inside.”

The book imbues its subjects with stillness and power. Though calm, the atmosphere is one of capacious potential. The titular island may as well be from another dimension. Black, fragile, powerful; a world of romance after the despair.

“To listen and to see with the whole body. To feel the breath and everything that breathes. Movement and stillness at the same time. An act. A performance. A place where time stands still and yet moves beyond measure.
The endless shifts, reflecting the inner body physically and emotionally. And as with almost everything, there is a paradox. The silent can be quite powerful, just as the loud can be quite empty.”
― all quotes from Åsa Stenerhag’s foreword