Selected series:

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'Pam's Children', Carlyle, 2017

A photography and style workshop with Masha Mombelli and Stevie Westgarth at the Carlyle LGBTQ Centre with regulars and their friends. Paying homage to Pam, who is a source of strength to locals through her work running the centre. The physical meeting place, rather than an online arena, provide a vital support in smaller towns and rural areas. It is a free-space to be heard, valued and respected. A sanctuary for those who might struggle at home or school with being outside the norm.

By contributing to the activities run at the centre, we wanted to offer being seen and portrayed through working together with the youth section for a day. Using clothes and props, we were looking for a transformation taking place using creativity, warmth and openness. The experience was meant to build confidence as a tool to tackle being different.

The project was supported by the Arts Council, and is in the process of being made in to an exhibition in Carlyle.

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´Caer Luel Stories´, Cumbria, 2017

A mask making workshop, using rubbish and found objects, with rural children in home education.

"What is our countryside telling us, when we wander about looking in bushes next to roads. What is the rubbish flying around, and where does it come from?" Inviting a group of children in home education and their friends to look for rubbish and found objects, relating to what they found by using it a base for masks in our workshop. Working with ideas of representation, the masks had to tell a story, either about themselves, the environment or a character that somehow related to these two subjects. The children wrote down the stories and were photographed, sometimes with help or guidance of a parent.

Being a part of a rural area, I was interested in how home educated children related to environmental issues and how they perceived identity of self outside the home. Something often shaped in schools as to in which 'group' one belongs to, I was curious to see if the children felt free from outside dogma?

The project was supported by the Arts Council, and is in the process of being published as a zine.

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'Past-time Paradise', Norway, 2017-18

Portraits of historical re-enactors and role players in Norway.
Every summer, and sometimes during winter, you see someone walking past in the most beautiful historical clothing in Norway. As a young teenager I was a part of a community in my home town looking outside of our current town borders, and in to larger context of who we were and where we came from.

Historical re-enactors and live role-players (these two can be very different) spend much of their year preparing for events where they can live out 'other selfs'. Through (home made) costume and creating a community, worlds and scenarios are able to leave the imagination and become a way of life.

I'm very interested in these 'other selfs', and temporary alternatives to the current technological and profit driven societies.

This work is in progress.

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'Small Town Speculation', Norway/Sweden/England, 2016-18

Ongoing portrait project which started looking at my Norwegian hometown, and gradually spread out to other cities I lived in.

I remember feeling extremely visible as teenager, being a boy often wearing girls clothes, walking to the school bus in the early 2000's. Sometimes empowering, often inducing anxiety, this speculation surrounding every step outside could at times be overwhelming. In this series I am working with others who might have had the same (or similar) encounters while shaping their sense of self. Looking at the formative experience that needs to express oneself in small communities gives you.