Passenger

“A major figure in contemporary Swedish photography, Martin Bogren develops a body of work in which the personal and poetic dimension is asserting itself with a practice of photography that is part of a form of initiatory journey. In Passenger, even though the photographs were taken in India during several stays in Calcutta, it is not an Indian chronicle.

It is about something else, a form of wandering, which is not limited to a geographical journey, a test of distance or confrontation with an unknown environment and culture, a change of scenery.

The photographer delivers a set where a form of abandonment pierces, of letting go that he translates with harsh or dreamlike images. His photographs emerge as subjective visions that reveal ambivalence, angelic or monstrous figures, lightness and violence. For the first time, he integrates color into his work, which he alternates with great consistency with his black and white approach. As a way to develop a language that allows him to experience the world and himself. ” —Caroline Bénichou