the whole theme about my work is feeling cold and empty. i am an emotional person so i put out what i see but through camera lens. things that bother me is construction, old neighborhoods that somehow got left behind or talked down about.. i see a similarity between icelandic nature and these places, because it has this balance of sadness and calmness. if you havent been sad or alone, you will not reach happiness. so with my pictures i want to show these matters, so we could try to fix it and see it through more happily.
i try to reuse the daily garbage that we consume, for example, milk boxes and cardboards. i do wallets and frames for my pictures out of it. in iceland fish companies were using a lot of polystyrene boxes, so i did frames with that as well.
nothing is set up in my pictures, people dont pose or anything. everything is analog and its always a gamble if picture will come out anyway, so i guess its my kind of way to choose what im gonna have.. sometimes i shoot one roll in more than a month, because i dont waste film..
about construction, i had some health issues in iceland because of explosions outside my work place for everyday for 3 months, so it kind of changed my whole view on it.. people build new hotels or overpriced apartments that locals will never see or feel, and its very sad that government doesn’t think about actual habitants.. some of already existing hotels are half empty.. and also- why not to try to save old one but tear it down and build something new?
info
Toms Janis Berzins
+37127724025
toms.berzins97@gmail.com
based in Stockholm, Sweden at the moment