JH Engström
Crash is a photobook built around landscape images taken close to his home in Sweden, where everyday familiarity merges with a growing sense of distance and unease. Engström never explicitly explains the meaning of the book, leaving interpretation entirely to the viewer. You are invited to make your own connections.
For me, the book feels as if it could be about an airplane crash—not only because of the title, but also because of, among other things, the use of infrared images. Infrared technology is often used in crash investigations, for example to detect heat sources or unusual energy patterns.
What I find interesting in JH’s books is how the images never stand on their own, but only gain meaning in relation to one another. The order and rhythm of the images form a narrative that is not explicitly told, but slowly unfolds through association. Crash shows how a book can function as a space in which individual images are not fixed, but are continuously re-read within a larger whole.
In my own work, I am also very interested in this idea of image order and context. Images only start to speak when they are placed next to each other, and their meaning shifts depending on what they are surrounded by.