A book is a book is a book, did you say? I thought my
definition of a book were formed enough, until the postman rang my doorbell
some weeks ago ~ and four books by the
Swedish photographer-painter- poet Jan Nordstrom waltzed into my life, making
me redefine what books are all about.
I’m still trying to figure out all that makes his books special.
Jan’s books have his poems, and his photographs. But they
are not glossy, touch-with-care coffee table books. Nor are they standard-sized
volumes that you pick off a bookstore shelf, scan, then toss away.
For there’s a certain fine-tuned sensibility underlying his books
that blew me away. Completely. This includes the brilliant photography, the edgy
design, the focused intent, the subtle paintings, even the text in translation.
It all comes together in undeniable harmony.
Take my favourite of the four, to begin with.
Take my favourite of the four, to begin with.
Freedom
Frihet (Freedom)
teases me with its cover blurb in English translation: “The story of Erik, Mona
and Ruben. For those who live close. About the people who nurse and help. For
those who carry hope as an inner world.”
I open the book. And I stumble upon Eric, just 10, in a
wheelchair. He’s at Kalmar country hospital with his mother Marina and his baby
brother Axel in a pram. This is a
poetic, pictorial document of his life from 2002-2004.
Eric has been battling leukaemia. He has been through chemotherapy. He dreams,
one day, of playing football with his friends again. And so he does.
A few pages later, I enter the world of Mona. A sweet, smiling couple dance in a living
room. Who are they?
In Jan’s words: “Tuesday, November 19, 2002./ The living
room./ Dance for a while./ Love each other. / Mona Iveby, 59, and her beloved
Bengt Ohlsson, 64./ Mona has neoplasm./ It can no longer be cured./ Only
curbed./ Love and the will to live carry them now…”
Through sensitive, gentle pictures Jan makes us look through
lenses we have never tried. We follow Mona’s journey. As a nurse helps Mona
with a shot of morphine to tackle her pain. As Mona dabs on lipstick, a gesture
of self-healing. As she paints every Wednesday, for little things gain great
meaning as dusk comes knocking at life.
As the couple drive away to a fairytale island cottage on Oland. By
2003, Mona and Bengt fly away to a cottage in Madeira. It almost makes you
believe in miracles in real time.
With courage, with infinite grace, Mona says, “I believe
that you need to take risks if you want to live life to its utmost.”
And then there’s 79-year-old Ruben who, post-surgery, realizes,
“So little is needed to make someone happy. A smile…”
Jan’s images speak even more eloquently than his text. An unforgettable hug between Mona and her
Bengt, their first in two years, his eyes closed in remembrance. A part-portrait of Ruben rowing, the deep blue
of the sky backdrop in sync with his eyes and his shirt. Eric, back with his
peers, his infinity smile a promise of sunshine days to come.
This is a moving testimony to the human spirit ~ and to trained
caregivers who heal with their gentle touch, their presence, their ability to
understand.
I can understand the
impetus for this book only because I’ve met Jan Nordstrom. Way back in the fall of 1999,
at Kalmar in southeast Sweden, by the Baltic Sea, where he lives and swims in
the icy waters at dawn. The city has a population of over 36,000.
We met when 20 of us from Asia, Africa and Latin America were
chosen to participate in a seminar on ‘Women
in Journalism’ in the idyllic small town.
Jan was the official photographer and course assistant ~ and we returned home with portraits that we
still look back on with wonder and tenderness.
Loveness
Karlekheten
(Loveness) left me just as wonderstruck. For, through poetry, photographs and
paintings, Jan evokes l-o-v-e.
I catch my breath over a semi –blurred, full-cheeked,
soft-lashed baby in profile in the right-hand corner of a double-spread. He
draws my eye in, as gently as a caress. On the blank page opposite, ant-like
words crawl into the stillness: “life
cannot be put on hold.”
 |
| An image from 'Loveness' |
Jan’s books are as much about his personal talent, as they
are about what we’ve come to associate with a Scandinavian sensibility: teasing
minimalism, deliberate restraint, evocative layouts that enhance.
What illustrates this in Karlekheten?
~ A faceless, dramatic black-and-white painting, with the
words: ‘you touch my inner being/ in the dreams I have hidden.’
~ A hand emerging
from a shirtsleeve, its fingers touching gnarled bark: ‘what do we leave
behind?’
~ The love story of Astrid, 84, and Sven, 95, immortalized
in a photo-essay, through arms wrapped protectively around each other as they
lie side by side, through the tangible love in their eyes as his hand touches
her cheek.
It is in the unspoken, the unwritten, the internally
visualized that come to life through Jan’s visual and verbal prompts. Each
enriches us in intangible ways. That’s what makes this book so precious,
priceless beyond counting.
Glow
Glod (Glow)
visually shares Kalmar’s luminous past, its glassmaking traditions. As Jan
couches it, “So I returned/ Back to the land of glass./ To the knights and
wizards of my childhood./ To those who blow life into glass./ To the pride in
their eyes. / To the glow./ To the treasure of glass.”
The accompanying visuals are stunning. Black at the centre
across a doublespread; to the left, a figure enters the building; to the right
is a slatted gate in front of an orange wall, a street lamp lights all. A hand
in focus between two fiery panels, as the molten glass is gathered. Lush green leaves; in the top corner of the
frame, a man in a red shirt sips from a glass. In the last quarter of a pitch
dark frame, Michael blows the slender beginnings of a vase.
Each frame in this mainly non-textual book is lyrical, even
painterly, culled with tenderness. This photo-essay truly glows from within
with imagination and insight.
Together
In Jan’s fourth book, “Tillsammansheten”
(Together), I did not have the benefit of an English text. Over its pages, he
follows Kalmar FF’s A-league footballers through the season of 2010-11. Being a
football fan like him, I was enchanted by it.
For not a single frame would fit into a sports magazine or
football reports in a daily. Dagens
Nyheter , Sweden’s biggest morning paper, chose it as one of the best books
of 2011.
Here’s a teaser trailer of what we see on his pages:
Black, hazy figures jumping in the air against a fogged skyline
and skeletal trees…
A huddle of
red-kitted heads with a pearl grey backdrop…
The toss onfield,
viewed through a sea of football-boots with long socks on…
A tantalizing double
frame: half a male face in profile looks in from the right edge; facing him is
a smudgy maybe-face at the edge of the left. ..
A feathery blue sky;
at its base is a tiny player in red; two balls bounce ~ one above his head, one behind him…
The drama of the locker
room, the nitty-gritty of coaching sessions…
The beautiful game comes alive in a million aspects through this
poetic, singing tribute from Jan. The power. The joy. The glory. And the
sadness of its flipside alike.
Until these books arrived at my door from Kalmar, I knew Jan
Nordstrom as a gentle, caring soul, a fine photographer. But the sheer span of
his undeniable talent has swept me off my feet.
Now I know for sure that a book is a book is a book, often predictable
and recognizable, but not when couched through the eyes of Jan Nordstrom.
Skol to you, my
friend Jan!
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More information on Jan’s books, mainly in Swedish:
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