Erik Gustafsson

Erik Gustafsson (b.1987 Uppsala, Sweden), currently based in Gothenburg.

“This is Farewell” is an autobiographical story which aims to explore the indeterminate borderland between fictive and documentary photography. By returning to my birthplace, I am examining and raising questions about the relationship between parent and child, and how our origin and heritage shape the process of coming into being. I play with the idea of the family as a battleground, of becoming and liberation. The portraits of my parents and grandfather, carefully selected and combined with self-portraits and landscapes, evoke the burning clashes of trust and betrayal, of love and rage. In this series, the family bond is untied by the light of exposure, not directed against the subject, but against myself, in relation to the subject. Photographs of photographs inside the home, create stories within the story, employing a familiar way of preserving and remembering members of the family tree. This series shows that photography is a way to verify one’s own and others existence, and also a way of staying connected to each other. 

The images mainly reflect my view and perspective on these relationships, but rediscovered video tapes also add another layer of perspective; the parental gaze on the child. It is the personal, the private life that is depicted and presented to the world, and the boundary between the private and public is blurred out. The question is where the secret, the private, begins and where it ends?

This project was also the starting point for new ways of creating images for me. During the making of it I started to consider the analog darkroom to have a direct continuation and complement of camerawork, where I continued to add layers of light during the printmaking process. The book is edited and designed together with Sandberg&Timonen and published by Heavy Books.
First edition /500.

The book can be purchased here and here

The book is edited and designed together with Sandberg&Timonen and published by Heavy Books.
First edition 500