inside - outside

Photo © Mia Galde

Yesterday I posted some pictures from the "street gallery" of my city. As you probably have guessed the photos are depicting candidates for the Swedish Riksdag (parliament). Elections will be held 19 September. The political parties are apparently spending quite a lot of money on their street exhibition. The pictures are everywhere and sometimes they are vandalized or they have ended up in an unexpected context. The photographs that we are exposed to in the so called public space are mostly in the form of ads - and the message to the citizens is; buy this product, use this service.

During elections the message to the citizens is - vote for me, support this political party.

Thinking about all this, I had a strange dream. Walking to the metro station I found the ads and the pictures of political leaders replaced by beautiful photographs. The free morning paper said that there had been a historic shift in the way we experience photography. Ads, postcards, election posters etc should now only be exposed in museums and galleries. Photographs exhibited inside should move outside and be presented to the citizens in the streets, metro stations etc of the city. Photos from the archives of the institutions, private collections, commercial galleries were also included in this historic turnaround.

Photo © Ulf Fågelhammar

Waking up from this dream I found Mia Galde's photo depicting a rack of postcards. I realized that this is what we get - the King and the Queen wawing at us, churches, cows, blue skies and sunsets. You should have a look at Mia's pictures on 591. She has explored some of the art in the public space in her photos.

Mia Galde on 591 Photography.