Tunbjörk, Lars: Country Beyond Itself (Landet utom sig - new edition)

The photographer Lars Tunbjörk (1956–2015) saw Sweden like no other. His camera eye was sharply revealing and ironic, but not without tenderness. He saw the country from the perspective of the periphery. Always Borås. His gaze was new because he showed what was invisible to us: the image of ourselves and our society. From Borås, Lars Tunbjörk’s career spanned the world. His way of seeing became so powerful that people talked about a ”Tunbjörker” as if it were its own genre. The images that raised so many questions have been integrated into our collective memory. It is photography as narrative, documentation and outstanding art.

In the photo project Landet utom sig, Lars Tunbjörk’s breakthrough, he seeks out people at campsites, shopping centers and department stores to tell the story of the market economy’s sudden arrival in Sweden, a social development that in the 1990s was also global. With his medium format camera and homemade flash, he created absurdist images full of both humor and sadness. A ’tunbjörkare’ became a concept, and he wrote himself into the history of photography.

Landet utom sig (Country Beside Itself) is a new, updated edition of the original book, first published in 1993. In addition to the original photographs and texts, the book includes a new foreword by Lena Kvist and an updated text by Göran Greider.