Stockholm’s Fotografiska is definitely no ordinary museum. It’s a beautiful and impressive center for contemporary photography, a glorious place celebrating the arts and life itself.

Fotografiska consists of 2,500 square meters and also houses a book shop, a restaurant (with a stunning view over Stockholm and its waterfront), and a commercial gallery. The Fotografiska Academy offers courses and workshops on site, as well, for both amateur and professional photographers.

The museum is open every day of the week from 9AM to 11PM (Thursdays to Saturdays even until 1AM!), allowing its visitors to pretty much indulge in the gorgeous exhibitions whenever they feel the urge to do so.

It’s a place like no other and it absolutely blew my mind! Have a look at the three current exhibitions below and make sure to visit if you ever happen to be in Stockholm.

Ellen von Unwerth: DEVOTION! 30 YEARS OF PHOTOGRAPHING WOMEN 

There’s no point in trying to soft-pedal the fact that an exhibition featuring Ellen von Unwerth’s 30 years of provocative photography will rub some of us up the wrong way. Here, the world’s most desirable women slink around sporting the most successful brands and are published in the most famous magazines – and they do it with pouting lips and naked chests.

For von Unwerth it’s never about objectifying. Rather about playing with archetypes and stereotypes, with high and low. It has long been believed that the role of art is to push boundaries, shed light on the absurdity of consensus and speak out about the Emperor’s new clothes. Perhaps it’s necessary to stir up emotions and create commotion, because if it isn’t allowed, if the powers who divide the world into nice and ugly, high and low, take over completely, then we are dangerously close to a time when the only color allowed is brown, Entartete Kunst, anyone?

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Much improves greatly if you play around with it. Don’t take things so seriously. Let life come to you instead of trying to control everything. I want energy and movement in my images because that’s how life is. You can’t control it. It will always surprise you, if you let it, instead of constantly labeling experiences as either good or bad.

Christian Tagliavini: THE EXTRAORDINARY WORLD OF CHRISTIAN TAGLIAVINI

There are those who turn control into an art form. People who take charge of everything, down to the smallest detail, and create unique and strange worlds that stir the viewer’s imagination. One such artist is Christian Tagliavini.

The former graphic designer is today a highly respected photographer with a unique style who has entered the world of 3D technology, where he (again) breaks new ground by combining various devices. It is a style in which craftsmanship in combination with an artistic vision results in iconic photography. Once you have seen a work by Tagliavini you will remember it forever. It matters little whether it is a woman with a beautiful and rather long neck, a documentation of Jules Verne’s tour of the underwater world or a dreamy landscape. Each photograph is like a scene that harbours its own story (in which the viewer is co-creator).

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For me, it is important that the process is not too defined so that the viewers do not immediately understand what the photographs depict, or my thoughts about them. Instead, I want to provoke ideas and, more importantly, feelings. Feelings are the most important thing in life and people who have been affected by my projects often share all sorts of reactions with me. Some people are touched and others upset. It doesn’t matter to me, as long as there are feelings.

Hans Strand: MANMADE LAND

MANMADE LAND comprises three series in which landscape photographer Hans Strand for the first time directs his camera towards landscapes which display the result of human interference in nature. At first glance, the result is stunningly beautiful, almost painterly images. However, on closer inspection, we recoil and sadly realize that our earth and its resources are now more manmade than natural.

In MANMADE LAND Hans Strand presents landscapes that bear distinct traces, scars, of human intervention – landscapes where the original nature has been entirely displaced: The mining for metals at the Rio Tinto River has transformed it into a poisoned, viscously coloured palette; miles after miles of olive tree plantations represent the monotony of monoculture, whose antithesis is an ancient patchwork of small-scale crops in the rugged mountainous terrain of Aragon. 

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We consume and destroy so much of the diversity that originally existed on the earth. This becomes obvious when seen from above. You may be looking out from a car window thinking: ‘What a lovely rolling landscape with olive trees’, but from above you see the whole picture, which is more like a tragedy of monoculture devoid of wildlife, insects and other vegetation. It is this type of human destruction of the earth that I am attempting to capture, both literally and figuratively. The patterns formed by human intervention on the earth’s surface are in themselves graphic artworks that I hope will bring home the extent of our actions.

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