II
Helene Nesset is a photographer from Oslo, Norway. She has recently graduated from the University of Huddersfield with a BA in Photography. Helene’s work focuses on portraiture and a documentary approach to investigate themes more profoundly, and on the other hand, she also works on fashion projects.
With her series II, also released as a 64-page book, Helene documents her grief of losing her identical twin sister, exploring the connection they used to have, which was abruptly cut off. It is also a pursuit to find answers and an attempt to understand the trauma by allowing photography to become a therapeutic tool.
Helene speaks about the process of editing the book and its physical appearance, which brings the viewer closer to the experience of trauma, “The book is handbound, open back, and has no cover but sits within a slipcase. It acts like a protector of the physical book but also the story. Without the slipcase, the book feels very fragile. The viewer must actively peel back a layer to unveil the story.“ We speak with Helene about the work on the series, the concepts of duality, memory, and healing. We discuss the decision to bring Cecilie’s voice into the book and the importance of presenting the painful subject truthfully and honestly.
‘Duality is explored and reappears throughout. It’s a conversation between the two of us, between life and death, between holding on and letting go, restlessness and calm, soft and hard.’
II is essentially about grief and loss in its rawest sense. My twin sister committed suicide towards the end of my first year of university after battling an eating disorder and depression for almost half of her life. I had a hard time going back after that and felt an incredible amount of guilt for leaving her to study in another country. I somewhat felt obliged to use photography to process it all, but it also felt like the most natural way for me to do it. This changed the way I shoot and look at photographs, as well as my perception of what photography is and what it potentially can do.
For me, photography became a therapeutic tool in the healing process when I worked on project II. The act of sharing this project also becomes a part of the healing, not only for myself but hopefully also for the viewer. II felt like the most obvious title for the project, as its roots sit in the relationship between my twin sister and myself. Duality is explored and reappears throughout. It’s a conversation between the two of us, between life and death, between holding on and letting go, restlessness and calm, soft and hard. It’s about two opposites, an inner conflict, and like grief itself — it is nonlinear and indeterminate. In the project, I reflect upon and address these difficult themes in a sensitive manner while investigating personal trauma and memory.
‘I shot a series of long exposures with flash to capture two versions of myself: one appears clear, and one faded. It became a way of working on a continuing bond with her.’
Since her passing, I've constantly been taking photos of people, objects, and places intuitively, often based on a feeling I get at a place or moment and responding to it without knowing what will come out of it. I’ve used my Mamiya RB67 to slow myself down in the process, which also brings a certain aesthetic to the project — soft focus, soft shadows and light, grain, and texture. The final selection is a variety of imagery from portraits to landscapes, objects, and everything in between in an attempt to fully give sense to what grief can be. It’s looking at old photographs, revisiting places of childhood memory, getting a tattoo, going on solo trips, laying in bed all day, and floating in the ocean. It’s ferocious, yet at times gentle. There is a solid base of black and white images complimented with soft blues that come to break up the sequence and offer a sense of calm between the more unsettling images.
I spent a lot of time photographing my family. I became obsessed with the thought of not having enough photos of them because I felt like I did not have nearly enough of my sister. I was afraid to forget her and afraid to lose them. I didn’t end up using these photographs, as I realized that what I needed to work on was my relationship with my twin. Every time I look in the mirror, I see her, so it felt obvious to photograph myself as a way of capturing the two of us. I shot a series of long exposures with flash to capture two versions of myself: one appears clear, and one faded. It became a way of working on a continuing bond with her.
‘I’m not afraid of dying. I’m afraid to not live inside a body, to just float around like air, like nothing. I’m afraid of not being able to think. Feel. Experience. I’m afraid of being trapped on earth. To freeze. I’m afraid of losing all power, and I’m afraid of becoming a ghost.’
— Cecilie Nesset.
I knew from the beginning that I wanted to make this project into a book, to give it a frame to sit in and hold the story. A big part of the process came down to editing and sequencing the images, looking at textures, relationships, and connections between the images until I felt that they told the story as truthfully as I could. There is no definite timeline, and like grief itself, it’s indeterminate and nonlinear. The book is handbound, open back, and has no cover but sits within a slipcase. It acts like a protector of the physical book but also the story. Without the slipcase, the book feels very fragile. The viewer must actively peel back a layer to unveil the story. There is a level of sensitivity and calm in the book’s design and sequence, which is punctuated by moments that are more unsettling and chaotic, made to align with the grieving process.
‘One image that has made a big impact on me, and I believe on others too, is the one of the phone in the hand. I knew early on that this was an image I wanted to make. It’s the most violent one in the series, but one I felt was very important to keep.’
It's hard to point out the most important image or the one that has become the main image of the whole series. The project is made as an arrangement of images to evoke/conjure a feeling rather than to describe it, so the series in its entirety and each image is very much reliant on the photograph that precedes and follows it. However, one image that has made a big impact on me, and I believe on others too, is the one of the phone in the hand. I knew early on that this was an image I wanted to make. It’s the most violent one in the series, but one I felt was very important to keep. It raises a lot of questions — how did it happen? Whose is it? Who’s holding it? It represents the heartbreak and the broken connection and offers insight into what has happened without being literal.
