How it started...
Oppdatert: 6. mars
My interest for photo, digital art and graphic design started when i was a taxidriver and guided tourists around in Norway. In my breaks i stopped and brought my camera with me and shooted some photos of the beautiful Norwegian landscape. I came back home from a trip and started to adjust the photos in photoshop and showed them to some friends who thought the pictures looked good and suggested an exhibition. I didn´t have any idea and i could absolutely not see my pictures in a exhibition. That was too far of my expectations and self-image. Then i wrote emails to the pharmacist companies and asked for financing to print it out in big sizes. After 30 minutes i got a reply from Abbott. They thought the pictures was very nice, sadly they couldn´t go in and support me for the cost of the prints. But instead of supporting me they wanted to buy the pictures instead and give to hospitals around in Norway.
Why pharmacies and why hospitals? In 1991 i got infected by hiv, a deadly disease that time and i got approximately 3 years to live.That was very hard to swollow in the age of 27 years. But I told myself I will live much longer and try to keep going and dont give up.So after. A while i opened up more and more in public and started with speeches/lectures for students and companies. When i worked with the pictures i got a idea from a question i used to get; How is it to live with hiv? Then i used to answer its about everything in life..its about to live..positive and negative. It’s about to live and life itself.In the photos i got a idea to beside that with words…word that starts with h, I and v.
The exhibition were hold 1.desember because that’s the international world aids day. Printed on aluminium plates they hang on the walls around in hospitals in Norway. Maybe still some of them.
After that the foreign affairs in Norway contacted me and asked if they could use the pictures to represent norway at the international aids conference in mexico city. I had one week in Mexico city were i was hired in and was responsible for the representation for norway were the booth they had was decorated with my "hiv word photos". The week after i went for a holiday in Puerto Vallarta. :) So thats how my intersest for photo, art and graphic design started. After that i started study graphic design and became a graphic designer.
It is a serie with 12 pictures. Here is some of them.