Day 329:“Often when me and my boyfriend have a lot to do, the dishes get stacked up. It gets so much that we have to do the dishes for several hours. (Laughs) it’s nice to do the dishes! I like when we get to come back to clean dishes. It’s like buying time, getting back on track.”
Maria Pasenau’s first photo book, Whit kind Regards Pasenau, is a diary-like compilation of pictures the Oslo-based image-maker captured of her and her friends’ lives. Pasenau self-published the book in 2018, the photos a document of her early twenties in a new city. Day to Day is Pasenau’s newest series, and focuses entirely on herself: the artist decided to take a self-portrait every day for a year, from October 11, 2018 until the same day in 2019. Wherever she was – mostly in her apartment in Oslo, but sometimes in London or Berlin – and with the help of alarm reminders on her phone, Pasenau would capture herself, no matter her mood.
Maria Pasenau: “I’m scared of forgetting things – that’s why I take pictures. The good, the bad, everything, so I can see how it was at that time. For me, it’s about the moment. During the three years that I was taking photos for my first book, Whit Kind Regrets Pasenau, there were ups and downs, as there are in life.”
“I have always experimented with identity: if something happens in my life, I want to celebrate it by dyeing my hair or buying new clothes. You can see the passage of time in the photographs from the colour of my hair. One time I coloured my hair black. The next day I was stopped by the police for tagging in the street. So then I knew it wasn’t good to keep my hair that colour. I’ve wanted to play with identity all my life. It’s always been like that for me.”
Day 142:“This picture is taken in Lofoten, a wonderful place. Cold, very cold, and very blue water! I was there on a photo festival to talk. I can remember that I had some hours alone, sitting by the sea, dipping my feet in the ice-cold water. That made me think about the city where I live, it became a big dirty monster. Why do I want to live in that dirty city.”
“Instagram is not my art world. It’s just my Instagram, much like everyone else’s. I want my pictures on a wall, not on Instagram. I want to be more in the world, not scrolling through a screen. I have a strong feeling I have so little time, so I have to use it carefully. I could die at any time. And I want to have my voice out there. Because if I die and my work goes into a box… Well, that’s the worst thing I can imagine.”
Courtesy of Soft Opening | London