October 6, 2018 - February 17, 2019
Helene Schmitz is today one of Sweden's most noted photographers. Her work brings great interest, both nationally and internationally. With her impressive and expressive photographs, she has in recent years actively and purposefully devoted herself to the exploration of man's complicated relation to nature's forces, time and forgiveness. The exhibition Thinking Like a Mountain presents a series of new works, where Schmitz's motif is the extraction of natural resources in Sweden and Iceland. In the photographs, it combines beautifully with the threatening and scary.

As a photographer, Helene Schmitz works analogously in large format with powerful compositions and technical sharpness, enabling the viewer to explore both overall structures and individual details. The precision and accuracy are combined in her work with measurable values ​​and mood-bearing expressions in the form of shifting lights, clouds, clouds, atmospheres and temperatures. The exploration of the sublime forms an important part of her artistry. The beautiful and recognizable combine with the unexpected, threatening and scary.

Thinking Like a Mountain can be considered as an in-depth and further development of the themes in a number of Schmitz's previous projects, including The Forest and Linnaeus Project. In this context, she has analyzed human colonization of nature through systematic, natural and natural resource extraction, as well as the consequences of it for landscape, flora, fauna and humans. The subject is urgent and has a special topicality with the summer's many forest fires and climate change in mind.

In Thinking Like a Mountain, Helene Schmitz has explored four forms of natural resource extraction, the forest, the bedrock, the river and the hot spring. Helene has been in the middle and northern part of Sweden where she photographed forestry and mining. In Iceland, she has explored a dust farm and a thermal power plant for the extraction of geothermal energy. The work began in autumn 2014 with the previously mentioned photographic series The Forest, and is being collected for the first time at Waldemarsudde. About the project Thinking Like a Mountain in its entirety, Schmitz expresses this as follows: “In this work I have wanted to figure out the violent transformation of nature in northern Europe today. My experience is that during my lifetime the perception of the wild, and the untouched nature of man, has broken. My photographs can be seen as meditations about man's relation to nature's resources - a global, high-tech and automated landscaping. Something that has been happening in much of the world over the past three hundred years at an ever faster pace.”

The title Thinking Like a Mountain refers to the influential American natural philosopher Aldo Leopold (1887-1948). One of his thoughts was that when man extracts a single element in nature, it has enormous consequences for the entire ecological system. Thinking Like a Mountain comes after the exhibition at Waldemarsudde to be displayed at the Photographic Center in Copenhagen. At Waldemarsudde, the exhibition is supplemented with a richly illustrated catalog of texts by Helena Granström, Olivia Berkowicz, Cecilia Sjöholm, Hanna Horsberg Hansen and Andri Snær Magnason, and a film interview with Helene Schmitz, an artist interview, a panel discussion, a concert and program for children and young people.

Program in connection with the exhibition:

Thursday 25/10 kl. 18:00
Artist talk with Helene Schmitz
Meet photographer Helene Schmitz in a conversation with museum director Karin Sidén about her artistry. Helene tells about the background to the exhibition Thinking like a Mountain. There will be a discussion about the extraction, resources and landscape image. The artistic process underlying the exhibition and Helena's work on analogue large-format photography will also be highlighted.

Tuesday-Friday 30 / 10-2 / 11 at. 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Autumn leave: Workshops in photo
In autumn holidays we explore photography! We get inspiration from the autumn's photo exhibitions and Waldemarsudde's beautiful surroundings. Rec. from 9 years.

Wednesday 7/11 kl. 18:30
Musik på Udden - Helene Schmitz “Thinking like a Mountain”
Contributing musicians: Gothenburg Combo / David Hansson (guitar) and Thomas Hansy (guitar)
Recitation: Elin Klinga
Music by: Gothenburg Combo
Texts by: Aldo Leopold, Linda Vilhjálmsdóttir, Ingibjörg Haraldsdottir and Gerður Kristný,

Thursday 22/11 at 18:00
The emergence of the photo art
PH.D. Niclas Östlind talks about the history of photography from the 19th century up to today from a Swedish and international perspective, starting from the two ongoing exhibitions, the painter as a photographer and Helene Schmitz - Thinking like a Mountain.

Wednesday 28/11 kl. 18:00
Landscape in transformation
Helene Schmitz is one of Sweden's most successful art photographers. Her work in Thinking like a Mountain can be seen as meditations about human relation to nature - a global, high-tech and automated transformation of landscape. In connection with the exhibition Thinking like a Mountain, a conversation is being held that raises the relationship between human nature and nature. Contributors: Helene Schmitz, artist, Helena Granström, author, Nyamko Sabuni, Sustainability Manager at ÅF. Musei Karin Sidén participates as moderator.

https://www.waldemarsudde.se/