{"id":240100,"date":"2024-07-05T16:14:30","date_gmt":"2024-07-05T16:14:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/05\/haunting-photos-bring-fictional-female-explorers-to-life\/"},"modified":"2025-06-25T17:15:25","modified_gmt":"2025-06-25T17:15:25","slug":"haunting-photos-bring-fictional-female-explorers-to-life","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/05\/haunting-photos-bring-fictional-female-explorers-to-life\/","title":{"rendered":"Haunting photos bring fictional female explorers to life"},"content":{"rendered":"

[ad_1]
\n<\/p>\n

\n
\n
\"Character_II_Bayanzag_1931_II<\/div>
\n
\n

Tonje B\u00f8e Birkeland as Tuva Tengel on a camel in Mongolia.<\/p>\n

Tonje B\u00f8e Birkeland<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The imagined female scientists, explorers and adventurers seen in Tonje B\u00f8e Birkeland\u2019s photographs are echoes from a footnote in women\u2019s history. In her ongoing series, The Characters<\/i><\/a>, the photographer frames herself in the guise of Victorian and early-20th century pioneers \u2013 dressed in period costume, holding binoculars and bellows cameras \u2013 snapped in widescreen vistas of mountains, fjords and ice flows. Each picture is a performance.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Character_IV_Plate_18_Across_from_Kangerdlugssuaq.\"<\/div>
<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

The project began in 2008, when Birkeland was on a course about photography\u2019s role in shaping historical truths. \u201cIt was all about did Neil Armstrong<\/a> go to the moon? Did Roald Amundsen actually get to the Pole first?\u201d she recalls. \u201cThat made me want to do something about women.\u201d Her first character was a glaciologist.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Character_IV_Plate_1_Astrups_Horn\"<\/div>
<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

Her photographs are puzzles and her work taps into the names, appearances and biographies of real, unrecognised women, such as Louise Arner Boyd<\/a>, a polar scientist who traversed the north-east coast of Greenland in the 1920s. As well as stepping into the boots of her creations, Birkeland writes their journals and creates installations of their travel cases (packed with maps and geological samples), which she both photographs and exhibits. She has immortalised her intrepid alter egos in various settings, from the snowdrifts of Svalbard to the foothills of Bhutan.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Character_IV_Plate_9_Astrups_Cottage<\/div>
<\/figure>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

In the top photo, she is seen as desert traveller Tuva Tengel on a camel in Mongolia. The three other photos show her as Arctic explorer Anna Aurora Astrup in Greenland.<\/p>\n

Birkeland\u2019s work will be at Forum Box<\/a> in Helsinki, Finland, from 22 August to 19 September.<\/p>\n

\n

Topics:<\/p>\n<\/section><\/div>\n

[ad_2]
\n
Source link <\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

[ad_1] Tonje B\u00f8e Birkeland as Tuva Tengel on a camel in Mongolia. Tonje B\u00f8e Birkeland The imagined female scientists, explorers and adventurers seen in Tonje<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":240101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[177],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240100"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=240100"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/240100\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/240101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=240100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=240100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/michigandigitalnews.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=240100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}