This output presents a body of photographic and text-based work across three inter-related research projects (2014-2020) that propose ways to represent the complex nature of peripheral places in Scandinavia and Northern Europe. The sites in question are: 1) Finland’s border region (with Norway, Sweden and Russia); 2) Telavåg, Sotra Island in Norway; and 3) the two UNESCO-listed heritage sites, Odda (Norway) and Orkney (Scotland). This body of work is a collaboration with independent researcher, Dr Jim Harold.

The main research question asks: How can artistic representations of place, that draw on the theories and methods of ethnography and social anthropology, facilitate multi-faceted understandings of peripheral landscapes in Scandinavia and Northern Europe? The methodology is informed by ethnographic and anthropological studies pertaining to the North by Tim Ingold, Thomas DuBois and Åke Hultkrantz. Methods include empirical research in the field, dialogic writing and photography.

Building on traditions of landscape photography of Scandinavia and Northern Europe, this body of work seeks to push beyond the representation of landscape as a descriptive endeavour, to propose the intermedial – in this case the space across and between photography and text – as an effective means to develop understandings of the complex histories of placemaking imprinted on these remote locations.