09 August 2009

Amerika - Through Windows


Nearby where I live, there is a rather extensive "koloniområde" (english, "allotment" - thanks Andreas!): a place with small cottages and gardens, where people can relax during the summer, and grow their own vegetables and flowers.

The name of the place is "Amerika", and it´s probably Sweden´s oldest allotment - it´s from the 1880`s and it´s located in the small society of Jonsered. During the end of that century there were hard times in Sweden, and it´s well know of course that a lot of people all over Europe emigrated to the USA. The emigrations was a threat to the industry in Jonsered: the factories lost skilled and productive staff. So, in order to retain the employees, they were offered a bribe, a piece of land in the south of the society. The land became a surrogate for the new country in the west, so it was named "Amerika".

At the moment I am working on documenting abandoned cottages in Amerika - structures, memories, that slowly falls apart interest me. This little serie is a small part of that documentation , and it´s almost a by product of the project. The main part of the images are just photos on the cottages from different angels, in a traditional style. But, I noticed that there sometimes was a lot of stuff left in some of the cottages. So I started to take pictures of that too, through the windows. I liked the result, so..




















9 comments:

GC said...

this is fascinating! hope you'll show us more

Miriam said...

love this

jeanne said...

fantastic work, Jan! I love abandoned places, too, and this is going to be a wonderful project to watch unfold. You really have a sense of conveying the beauty of what remains, I think.

Andreas said...

Wow, I love these pictures. So beatuiful, so serene and so eerie. I also like the way they seem to be double exposed with the reflections.
(By the way: in britain it's called "allotment", I think...)

Lina Nääs said...

Abandoned places are so uncanny! (which of course means we all love them...) I want to go there! The pictures are great

marcin górski said...

pure magic

Paul in NYC said...

Very, very poignant! Thank you for the beautiful photos.

Chris said...

Lovely work Jan! Im particular fond of how you treat the colors here!

Jan Buse said...

Thanks for all of your fine comments!

I will publish more images of Amerika here on The F Blog, that deals with different aspects, moodes, seasons..

And there are really a lot of things, and emotions, to photograph on this place. And I would to see your images from Amerika Umma. But beware of the ticks (fästing) if you go there during the summer, there´s a lot of them!