Sirkus Islands

Ten years ago a Australian Lee founded a small circus school in Iceland and many of his grown-up students play now their home country with him. Many have consciously chosen an alternative life plan outside the materialistic world and generate a new form of family within the collective. For me, this circus has a breathtaking energy - coming and fresh - in contrast to the European circus. My interest in the documentation of the processes within a circus concludes, among other things out of my curiosity at the man and his ambivalent relationship with reality. Over two years I was able to document the different stages in the development of Icelandic artists circus Sirkus Islands and integrate myself there in the operations of the group. Together with the artists I worked on their portraits and documented their process of professionalisation: from appearances in schools and communities Islands to the purchase of a traditional circus tent. Early 2014 I photographed there for the first time and ever since every two months. In the summer of 2015 I even accompanied the entire summer tour of the group. The circus travels in summer, among other places through: Vestmannaeyjar, Isafjordur, Siglufjördur - all cities which never hosted a circus before. At the beginning of my work stood the interest of the behind the luster and what was hidden backstage. Meanwhile, my work has become a kind of cultural assurance work: access to a hidden world and an alternate order are created with my pictures, places where traditions can continue to grow new roots, are shown. Just because there is no circus tradition in Iceland I can trace not only a social fabric within a protected circus space, but also shed light on the Islands relation to this autonomous grouping. The photo series is a reflective work on unifying and divisive tendencies which make up the circus as a medium: is circus per se without attitude towards the system it’s located in or perhaps a politically powerful tool? The photos produced analog in the square format and are a mixture of staged and documented Photography.