On the 1 November the Swedish artist Maria Miesenberg was awarded the Swedish Photo Book Prize 2011 for her book Sverige/Schweden (Steidl).
Derived from Miesenberger’s private family album the darkly, evocative images of the Sverige/Schweden series create a narrative of epical proportions. By re-presenting her father’s images of her childhood in Austria and Sweden, Miesenberger transforms these images to another order of speech. The photographed persons are no longer recognised as individuals. They are set afloat as dark hollow shapes in the image. In these innocent looking images of the small nuclear family an inherited memory is hidden but present, the father’s childhood in Austria in the presence of war and genocide is hiding behind the shadows. Miesenberger began her work with the series already back in 1992 and the idea was from the beginning to let the viewer face himself and his memories.
Sverige/Schweden is edited by Maria Miesenberg together with Greger Ulf Nilsson and Björn Kusoffsky who also did the design for the book.
Maria Miesenberger was born in Lund, Sweden 1965. She studied photography, and painting at the University College of Arts, Crafts and Design (Konstfack), Stockholm, and sculpture at Parsons School of Design, New York, USA. Her photographical and sculptural work has been shown in various solo and group exhibitions at galleries and institutions including venues at the Moderna Museet, Stockholm, Bildmuseet Umeå University, Sweden, Fotomuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, and The ICP, New York, among others.
The Swedish Photo Book Prize was created in 1996 and is organised by the Swedish Photographer´s association. The motivation from the jury for this years winner translates like this: Spot on. Perfectly packaged dream candy for the culture consumer.
Nominated for the prize was also Nils Petter Löfstedt, The Pier (Pierre von Kleist-edition), Catharina Gotby, Presence (Amfora), Hendrik Zeitler, A place of one´s own (Journal) and Mikael Olsson, Södrakull Frösakull (Steidl).
