Examined & Exposed – 8 Master Students from Valand Academy’s Photo Program

As the final show in spring 2016, Cecilia Hillström Gallery presented a group exhibition with the MFA-students from Valand Academy's photo program. The exhibition was curated by Niclas Östlind, PhD, curator and head of the MFA program in photography at Valand Academy.

A common thread among these artists is a strong interest in the passing of time and processes of memory - often in relation to personal experiences and questions of identities - but also connected to particular places and historical situations. There is a focus on beauty and decay, although the borders are often hard to tell. Materiality in different forms is made present through experimentations with surfaces and light, as well as with the textures of the medium itself. Their works exemplify what young artists today create by looking through the lens of a camera. The images are less captured in the moment of exposure than constructed and examined in postproduction.