Tuesday, October 14, 2008

JH Engström's CDG/JHE

Swedish photographer JH Engström's project CDG/JHE is an exploration of Roissy Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris. This specific place was highly influential in the artist's youth, providing the first point of contact with the world outside his native Sweden. However, the images also seem to speak to the architecturally and socially imposing nature that airports have taken on in the past few decades. Airports have become synonymous with restriction, security and fear, leaving in the past the historical notion of them being gateways to exoticism and adventure. In his statement, Engström asserts:

"For this photographic project I spent three weeks in this particular zone, isolating my self in an airpirt hotel, and spending the days in and between the terminals.

With fiction, poetry and mystery I observed the airport. Raising questions on its social, urban and architectural dimensions.

The airport becomes a new place to observe identities and the history of relations."

Steidl recently published CDG/JHE, which you can preview and buy here.











All photographs from the series GDG/JHE

All Images © JH Engström