I have always hated my own body.

But in the pursuit of a modicum of body acceptance, I have spent the last ten years pushing myself into becoming my own model and muse. Without a particular end goal in mind, this project allows me to focus on creating a space for exploration, whilst also becoming a much needed exercise in not worrying about technique, equipment or even outcome.

This is an ongoing project, an imperfect study of self, representing both a middle finger to my childhood bullies - and a fumbling love letter to my own physical presence.

Approximately half of the pictures I take, I don’t know why I take, or what I will use them for.

But I have recently decided that not everything needs to be understood, in order to be appreciated.

Maybe this ambivalence or lack of clarity is a common thread in itself?

I’m sure it will make sense one day.

Every year I go home for Christmas. Every year I feel alone, different, sad. And every year I cry, when I hug my family goodbye, leaving for the big city again.

In Norway, an increasing number of people live alone. 2021 became the year when the number of people living by themselves exceeded 1 million for the first time, with Oslo being the county with the highest percentage of people living alone. 

As of January 1, 2022, there were 360,699 households in Oslo, and with 48% of these consisting of only one person, almost half of us who live in the capitol live alone.

Oslo has also been dubbed «The city of singles», ranking third in a list of the 50 best cities in Europe for singles in 2019 by global travel site Big 7 Travel.

This is an ongoing project about people who are living alone - some by choice and others not so much.

After three weeks of bombardment and over 8,000 dead in Gaza, people gather in downtown Oslo to show the Palestinians support. The feeling of unity and resistance was a welcomed high - I didn’t cry until I came home and ate my cold takeaway falafel and looked at the pictures on my phone.

0-29

I am born and I am different. I am strange and weird and different and I know it. I am bullied, I hate it at school and I move away the year I turn 16. I study music, get new friends, learn to sing and dream of being a classical pianist. At 17 I am sexually assaulted for the first time, by a much older man, but I tell nobody. I consider taking my own life, but I can’t deal with all the blood and I move abroad instead, to study art in the UK. After graduating, I move back, try to find a job in the city, but I am tired and sick, I live alone on 11 dark square meters in the rainiest city in Norway and I don’t understand how people get the life they want. I end up on sick leave for a long, long time, but work part time in a secondhand shop, buying too much kitschy knick-knack and spending too much time alone. I am depressed and get my first therapist, but tell her nothing of value, and our last appointment is only twelve minutes long.

30-39

My case manager at NAV (Norwegian Labour and Welfare Administration) tells me I can’t receive any more work assessment allowance (AAP) and tells me I either have to study full time, or find a full time job. I panic, I spend three months in a psychiatric ward, where I am treated for depression and anxiety, but move to the capitol afterwards to study photography. I manage to make some friends, I work part time at the school and as a nanny, I get several tattoos, my septum pierced and whisper FUCK IT! to the dirty mirror as I prepare for my first Pride. Graduation again, this time without the flat hats and cape. I get some money, I travel to celebrate, I have my first international solo show, I am happy, I take lots of pictures, I exhibit abroad again and I win prizes. I buy a one-bedroom flat right next to the vast forest, I get a dog just in time for the first lockdown, she’s a rescue and she loves me and it saves my life.

39-

I get a therapist, I get a new one, I go to group therapy and physio once a week, I buy vintage dresses I never have the guts to wear and I wonder why I live in Oslo when I could be living in San Francisco. I go to vernissages, attend workshops and graduate shows, masking like a pro and trying desperately to hide my jealousy towards all the young and beautiful talent that seems to be everywhere. I have been dieting since I was 10, but I am still fat, I feel completely redundant and replaceable, and it’s incredibly debilitating. I spend way too much time reading news and reports about the climate and other humanitarian crisis, I don’t really have any close friends, maybe one or two, but they live far away. I miss my nieces and nephews deeply, but I could never move back home to the tiny island.

It turns out I have ADHD and Anxious/avoidant personality disorder (AVPD), but no medicine helps, I insist on taking a CYP gene test and it reveals I don’t metabolize a long list of meds, meaning I have been taking antidepressant without any effect for the last 20 years. I am very angry, a lot of the time. Periodically I get it together, lose some weight, call my family, volunteer, win a competition, get published, hold a string of workshops and cry a little when the cool kids tell me “It wasn’t too bad”.

Once a week I shave my head, my doctor gives me new pills to try (again), I teach my dog silly tricks and I smile every morning when she wakes me up wanting cuddles. We walk in the forest every day, very slowly so she can sniff it all, there’s deer and foxes and squirrels, but I often miss the ocean. I look at the skies and wonder when I’ll die. I hope it happens quickly.

After much consideration, I have decided to not be intimidated or worried about new technology, especially AI generated images and the threat they pose to my photography. In a one-off experiment, inspired by my own self portraits, I simply put in words describing myself and my surroundings: fat, buzzcut, mirror, hairy legs, tattoos, makeup free, chihuahua, black tiles etc. All of these images were created with a free AI program and not edited or cropped any further.

At first, all I could do was laugh. Who are these ridicules creatures? Where do they even come from? But then, to my surprise, I felt bad - as if I had been caught bullying myself. Who am I to say these images are of no value? I even created them! Where do they go after I close the tab on my computer? Do they exist anywhere else, besides in my unreliable memory? Don’t they deserve to be seen, despite their imperfections? I decided yes. This is also me, I guess.

These are some of my favourite results. Be nice to the machine, it’s trying its best.

"I think I have experienced less racism because I have mainly white, well-dressed friends. I am quite into fashion and I think it would be a whole other story, if I didn't dress the way I do."

Research for a new project about being black in Norway.

My days are blurry, my memory mushy. Familiar scenes suddenly gets new meaning. Too many things are changing - too many things stay the same.

I haven’t had a hug in over twenty weeks.

Excerpts from daily life during the first lockdown in 2020, exhibited in 2020 and 2021 as part of the zine project “Please try again later”.

Norway went into lockdown on the 12th of March, 2020. I could write a book about how difficult and frustrating I found it, but that doesn’t change the fact that as a Norwegian, I am one of the lucky ones. Except for the heightened worries of being a freelancer, I feel very safe. This spring has made me take extra time to reflect more deeply on my privileges, and how I can better be a force of good, both as a human being and as a documentary photographer.

As for many Norwegians, nature turned out to play a fundamental role in keeping me sane during the lockdown. I live 30 minutes from downtown Oslo by bus, with the vast forest a meager hundred steps from my door. Having recently gotten a dog, meant that I had to go for at least three walks - every day.

I started bringing my lightest camera, and without a particular plan, I managed to take a few pictures almost every day. This daily exercise made me see even the most familiar scenes in a new light. It made me think about what we have, what might disappear, what we need to share. How we depend on each other and how everything starts where you are - with your own thoughts and how you respond to those thoughts.

My hope is that enough people will take the necessary time off to educate themselves, and as a result, make an effort to get involved in addressing the many things that still need to be challenged throughout the world. This virus has defined our lives in many ways. I hope we come out the other end wiser and kinder, with the motivation to build a better, safer world - for everyone.

Mirjam Stenevik, 10.05.20

Part of Lockdown Europe - a photo project on the Corona crisis, where 52 photographers from 47 countries show photos from all European capitals.

“Kiss me hard before you go

Summertime sadness

I just wanted you to know

That baby, you the best”

- Lana del Rey

Unedited analogue snapshots from the summer of 2019.

When I started studying photography, I made a video about Norske Hemmeligheter, where people could send in their secrets anonymously, inspired by Frank Warrens PostSecret. A selection of the submitted secrets would then be given illustrations and posted on the blog.

I was so fascinated by the project, and all these secrets, that I asked if I could get a handful of random secrets and take pictures to accompany them.

Almost ten years later, I still look at these and feel a strong, strange connection to someone out there.

In 2013 my mom and dad treated all their seven kids to a charter holiday to Israel, arranged by a Christian company specializing in trips to the Holy Land. A few days before our flight, I had finished a three month stay at a psychiatric clinic, being treated for depression and anxiety.

I remember feeling privileged and grateful in every way, but still surprisingly deflated and confused - as if I had been dropped from another planet, unable to understand or connect to the people around me. I recall lying in my soft hotel bed, watching news about knife attacks and the following promises of retaliation, whilst my family was frolicking on the beach. Perhaps overwhelmed by the absurdity of it all, I think my subconscious mind opposed the very obvious motifs everyone else was looking for, gently leading me to direct my camera elsewhere.

And even if I would never wear it, I still have the baseball cap with «Shalom Jerusalem» embroidered on, somewhere.