“ If I saw something in my viewfinder that looked familiar to me, I would do something to shake it up.” – Garry Winogrand

BECAUSE OF THE FREE ASSOCIATION

Even Ovnan is a Norwegian artist and professional photo-grapher. His work has a strong emphasis on photographic technical skills.

He has also gained a good un-derstanding of Cultural Studies, and with one foot in England and the other in Norway, he has developed a great interest in Eu-ropean Studies, focusing on the those countries in turmoil over the austerity measures.

Ovnan considers himself to be “a politically active photograp-her”. This activity is reflected in his works, which often deal with political corruption and political economy.

One of his biggest influences is photographer David Hume Kennerly, who won the Pulitzer Prize for his work as a press

photographer. He represents what Ovnan calls ‘a truly political photographer’.Ovnan’s latest work “Inverted”, which is presented in this ca-talogue, is what he considers to be his departure point to the world of social photography. This work deals with issues of politics, hypocrisy and corrup-tion.

Ovnan’s intention is to bring up a dialogue about the euro crisis. And, as a response to such de-clining society, it is important for Ovnan to tell through his critical views and photographs that social and economic changes should happen right now and not to be put on hold for any longer.

Ovnan’s use of technical skills is professionally executed, but he also likes to incorporate some

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photographic incorrections. He says, “But this must not be misinterpreted”, and adds that “I, in a way, destroy some of the photographic quality by mani-pulating the image, and this, for me, is the most important key and best means of conveying the message to the viewer.”

The series “Inverted” provides a clear reference to what Ovnan believes is a changed society, away from a lot of hypocrisy and corruption. His series focus on notions relating to the evasion of funds made by politicians for their personal purpose and prosperity. By inverting the photographs, Ovnan refers to the idea of experiencing a false democracy.

Besides the clear political ele-ment in Ovnan’s project, he also played with aspects of weight-

lessness and gravity. And, this is done by inverting the photo-graphs, and let the objects to levitate. He explains that “The purpose of this tactic is to get the viewer to wonder and think further, and there is some help to create a deeper interest in the series and a further analysis about it”.

Ovnan has researched some theories by the well-known psychologist Sigmund Freud. One of Freud’s methods used in his psychoanalytic sessions was based on the free association. In the same way, Ovnan explains, Freud conducted therapy with their patients who were enco-uraged to freely express their feelings.

Referring to this method, Ovnan’s aim is to get viewers to reflect on their own associations

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when looking at photographs included in the series.

He declares, “My goal is to get viewers be themselves and make them think about what they see.” Ovnan says “This aspect of the project is what makes the project so interesting to me”. He adds, “one thing is to see a chair outside a window or a sweater in the air. But, what is exactly the reason that makes you consider what you do there and then?”

He tries to make the viewer guess and discover the answers to the questions he poses. The-refore, this project is a twofold. It correlates well with Ovnan’s personal and ethical thoughts, but he clearly wants the viewer to go deeper into him or herself through his work.

He suggests, “The beauty of this project is that you get clues of what the project is about, but if you fail to identify the real issues of what I try to commu-nicate to you through my work, you still have the possibility to create your own story about what I present to you. That is because of the free association method.”

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BIOGRAPHY

Even Ovnan was born, Novem-ber 1990. He is a Norwegian photographer, based in Oslo, he has completed a two-year pho-tography program at The Nor-wegian School Of Creative Stu-dies. But also has a background in Media & Communication, with specialization in marketing.

The interest in photography came relatively early in his life, the age of 10 years he received his first camera.

The main highlights of his ca-reer was his participation in the final show Norwegian School Of Creative Studies where he recei-ved organized internal prices for the work, ”The Moment, Before The Moment.