Tag Archive for 'Simon Hogsberg'

Free Advice + Coffee

julius published on May 1, 2010 in art and celebrity. 4 Comments Tags: , , .

In the beginning of 2009 Simon Høgsberg surprised me with his 100 meter long photograph We’re all gonna die – 100 meters of existence. It was a huge picture that showed ordinary people walking across a bridge in Berlin. They all seemed caught up in their daily routine which was what made the entity so natural, so human. A few weeks ago I discovered Høgsberg engaged himself in another human project; Free Advice + Coffee.

He piled up some pallets at the sidewalk of a busy intersection in his hometown Copenhagen and put a sign adjacent to it reading: “Free Advice and Coffee”. The goal was to talk about the problems of the passersby that had enough courage to do so. Høgsberg, being ‘just a photographer’, hadn’t got any background in psychology or any other sort of therapy so when people asked what his expertize was he told them that he hadn’t got any therapeutic background but just wanted to help people with their problems.

On his website he showcases a big collection of pictures taken while he was trying to solve people’s problems. One of the best stories he tells is how he was approached by three teenage muslim girls of whom one faced a difficult decision:

One of the girls starts talking to me, the two other girls move a little away. The girl tells me that today she and her two friends started at the same school, but her two friends have started training with a focus on Sanitation and Food and she has started an education in architecture and urban planning. And now she’s unsure – that is what she tells me – if her study is right for her or if she had better switch to the course her friends are on. I ask her, what would your situation be like if – and try to imagine that this scenario is real – so, how would the whole situation look if your two friends didn’t exist, they are not a part of your life, they’re gone, erased from your consciousness? If that were so, would you still consider switching to the Sanitation and Food program or would you stay on the course you have chosen – at least for a while so that you have a chance to get to know the course? The girl said that she was actually quite interested in architecture, and today was her first day on the course and her impression of it was pretty good. So if her friends didn’t exist she’d probably, she said, stay on the course – at least for now. She could always switch courses if she found out later that she’d rather be on the course her friends had chosen.

I said, well, there you have your answer. Stay where you are – stick with the decision you have made – that will be best for all three parties.

For me the beauty of this entire project lies in one ordinary human being helping another one. There’s virtually no difference between the two since Høgsberg hasn’t got any background in people-helping at all, normally when someone visits a shrink there’s always some level of distance between them. Talking with a friend can help solving personal problems at rocket speed because you receive a point of view from an outsider. Imagine what it would be like getting that new point of view from someone you don’t know at all? That would be the biggest outsider possible.

I think that with his Free Advice Høgsberg showed that we’re all able to help a human in need even if it just were for sitting down with them for a good talk and a nice sip of coffee.

Monday Modern Art Chat: We’re All Gonna Die

julius published on March 2, 2009 in art and celebrity. 4 Comments Tags: , , , , .

mmac-were-all-gonna-die-100-meters-of-existence

I realize that the title of this post can suggest it is going to be about something really, really depressing. But let me comfort you, this isn’t the case. It just happens to be the title of an awesome-ish art project that got to me a few days ago.

In the summer of 2007 the Copenhagen located photographer Simon Høgsberg took his camera and traveled down to Berlin. He walked onto the railroad bridge in the Warschauer Straße (probably this one), took out his camera and started to photograph people that passed by. He sat there for twenty days (I hope he got a bit of night rest between the days) and just took photographs, from the same spot, of different people. After twenty days he had about 178 faces on his memory card and went home, where he sewed the whole together.

The result is a piece of art that measures 100 meter x 78 centimeter (yes, that is a onehundred meter long photograph). I’m not sure if it is exhibited somewhere (I wonder what sort of venue has got space for such a piece of art) but it is available through his website.

When looking at the piece of art you see people. Lots of people. People that hand out flyers, people that go to work, people that are young, people that are old. And yes, also people that have got a patch on one of their eyes. Somehow Høgsberg managed to merge a lot of different groups into one piece of art. There are punks, skaters, elderly and colored people. There’s also a variety of emotions present, angry people, sad people and (luckily) also happy people!

Høgsberg says:

Only few of the poeple on the photograph seemed to know I was taking their picture.

Which is wonderful somehow, no? To capture people without knowing they are being ‘captured’. I think that the photographer gets the most natural impression in this way. As Høgsberg said, there were a few that did knew. There are a few people that gaze straight in the camera, find them for yourself, some of them really made me smile.

The full title of the project reads: We’re All Gonna Die – 100 meters of existence and I reckon it can be rather depressing. But if you think about it, it isn’t. Høgsberg captured ‘existence’, he captured 178 lives and brought them together into one piece of art. Everyone you see in the photograph (and around you) is going to die. But the diversity of our lives is so extremely, outrageously beautiful, that the fact that we are mortal is just something minor.