Connection
Danish photographer Claus Troelsgaard shares some in-depth reflections on Connection, a new series consisting of twenty-two photographs, with WÜL Magazine. The series dives into human relations, and what emerges is one mesmerising scenario or world after another.
Initially, when I started working on this series in December 2019, I had some great discussions with an architect named Alexander Vedel Ottensten. He is brilliant at designing spaces, and we were mutually interested in mediating this idea of spaces that, in reality, do not exist. The series Connection developed from a dialogue between us on how to integrate people and objects into these different realms.
Photography Claus Troelsgaard Set Design Alexander Vedel Ottensten Talents Louise Cehofski Tonia Atieno Halfdan Kirketerp Julius Nordfalk At Scoop Models
‘The fog or mist pervading the images is something that the portrayed bodies get into contact with. It gives a quality of dream induced haziness to the photographs.’
— Claus Troelsgaard
This body of work looks to the connections between people. I sought to purposely highlight the relationship between a human and the environment. Specifically, the spaces they inhabit or the physical sensations they encounter. When one person pinches the other, what is the intention behind, and what must that feel like? The body and especially skin, as our largest organ, works as something permeable between an inner and outer world, engaging us in connections.
Each image is carefully crafted, working with specific compositions and lighting. In Connection, it is an overall atmosphere that ties the photographs in the series together. The fog or mist pervading the images is something that the portrayed bodies get into contact with. It gives a quality of dream induced haziness to the photographs. Equally, I like the physicality that this brings out, especially the sensation and memories that it may give rise to.
As a photographer, I want each specific image to have the power to invoke something in the viewer. Furthermore, I wanted each image to be a universe existing in and of itself, and then at the same time, show how these different worlds coexist. By allowing them to melt into and coerce one another. Just like the models do in their movements and interactions with each other and their environment.
‘With Connection, I wanted to create a fluidity between these distinct worlds and ways to access them. What interests me is to work with many references at the same time.’
You may spot reworkings of the specific constructed spaces of Renaissance painters like Piero Della Francesca or other references, but for me, it is far more important that it all comes together and creates something new. So one reference dynamically generates another, creating a web of temporal shifts and scenarios inside the series.
In many ways, I am continuously inspired by different concepts of materiality, and in Connection, this comes forth through an examination of the body’s relations to its immediate surroundings.
