Christopher Jonassen

About the project

Christopher Jonassen has photographed intimate scenes of summer tourists boating along Norway’s southern coast. The images, shot from a birds-eye view, show candid tableaux of human behaviour and interaction. In a maritime packaging, the photographic series Vessels reveals more than the obvious. Through viewing anonymous people, a mirror is held up to ourselves, inevitably forcing us to reflect on our culture, values and existence.

This is what we long for. Sun glittering on water and sea spray hitting warm, grateful skin. The fragrance of seaweed, salt, sun cream and gasoline. The cry of seagulls, distant children’s elated voices, the motor’s even purr and the sound of the keel ploughing through waves in the archipelago.

In the photographic series Vessels, we see anonymous people in boats, oblivious to being observed and captured on film. The mood onboard radiates a sense of vacation, of having no commitments, as people stretch out on deck or lean back with one hand on the steering wheel, their gaze resting somewhere on the horizon. This is the phenomenon of free time portrayed in one of its most authentic forms. Norwegian summer idyll such as it perhaps actually appears, but not necessarily in the way we would like it to appear to others.

Using a voyeuristic approach, Jonassen succeeds in creating a sense of intimacy in Vessels. The pictures are shot from a bird’s-eye perspective, at about a 90-degree angle, and show all the details of the various narratives playing out onboard the boats. The hulls are used to frame the subject matter, and with the direct, straight-down viewing angle into the boats, they provide the starting point for the compositions. The pictures, which are almost transgressively close-up, inevitably appeal to the voyeur in us. We can study the anonymous people at our leisure, without being seen ourselves. It’s easy to let our imagination run wild, to treat the objects, food, activities and interior choices as indicators for our subjective impressions of the people onboard. In addition to these social markers, we can speculate over the different constellations of relations by studying body language, interaction and physical proximity or distance.

- Maiken Winum

When swallows fly high

A little boy will travel to the south of Norway and spend his summer holiday with his mother and grandparents. They will live in a cabin by the sea, on a small island. They will do this every summer. He will also make a friend, experience his first kiss and throw up from eating too many cherries. His grandfather will teach him that when the swallows fly high it is a sign of good weather, and that this is a good time to pack for a boat trip. They will ride their boat around the small island which is connected to the mainland only by a narrow bridge. Sometimes someone will wave to him from the bridge. He will enjoy these boat trips greatly and he will think these lazy summer days will last forever.

When he is older, the sight and sound of swallows will stir something deep within him. He will have a hard time explaining this to others, but nevertheless, it will remain.

A man will return to the place where he spent his summer holidays. His grandparents have passed away now. He will go on boat trips with his friend, but it's not the same. He will stand on the bridge and remember his childhood. He will look at the people passing under the bridge in their boats and wonder who they are and where they are going. Sometimes he will wave to them. Sometimes he will photograph them. He will do this over several years. In one of the images he will feel like he somehow captured himself as a little boy. This will make him feel the need to share his photographs with others, in the hope that they might mean something.

- Christopher Jonassen