Miriam Bäckström: APARTMENTS
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Miriam Bäckström
APARTMENTSDecember 1, 2001 – January 26, 2002
Islands Brygge, Copenhagen
The series Apartments by Miriam Bäckström consists of 20 framed photographs of identical size, each depicting a singular view into a Swedish home. The photographs were taken in Stockholm during 2000-2001.
Apart from the subject matter, Apartments share a number of common features: as in Miriam Bäckström's previous works, people do not appear in the pictures; furniture with a social function (sofa, table with chairs, etc.) is a central element; the genuinely Swedish, or at least Scandinavian, interior decorating style prevails; the scene seems to have been shot in an everyday state, with a glove on the floor, a vacuum cleaner standing in the corner, or forgotten toys lying around; cables or unidentified pieces of furniture may appear in the corner of the image, as if the frame turned out to be larger than expected.
It is especially this latter aspect, which can be described as being an intentionally hopeless act of rendering the picture "objective", and hence a true representation of the represented, which is typical of Bäckström's work. As in her earlier photographic series, Estate of a Deceased Person, Set Constructions and Museums, Collections and Reconstructions, the "clear" (almost merciless) and "empty" (in the sense of without feelings) look at what is there most of all emphasizes foremost all one aspect: what is not there, what is excluded.
The absence of people equals absence itself, and it is quite remarkable how her negative approach becomes, in the end, a very personal, subjective, even intimate matter. The series Apartments function like a mirror, they reflect more than they actually depict.
What you see is not really a glimpse of somebody's home, as the usual representation of their personality, but more yourself in a strange way standing there, looking at it. The story, in this case, you tell yourself.
In 1982 Jean Baudrillard wrote "reality founders in hyperrealism, the meticulous reduplication of the real, preferably through another, reproductive medium, such as photography" (Selected Writings, Stanford, 1988). However, Miriam Bäckström's pictures are not about "reality" as being "that for which it is possible to provide an equivalent representation" (J.B.). Quite the opposite, by depicting the "hyperreal" (the construction of one's private environment, or, earlier, the constructions used as backgrounds in movie and advertisement sets), she adds another level to this. She personalizes the view through her insistence on absence, and creates an awareness of the difference between viewer and picture.
Incidentally, the images from the series Apartments will be used for reconstructing "reality", by becoming part of the archive of the Swedish film production company Hinden-Länna Ateljéerna, to serve as reference material for the construction of film sets.
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Installation views
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