At the time of writing this I’m sitting at the Stortorget in Gamla stan, Stockholm – a place that in my imagination still is as cold and empty as I experienced it in one freezing winter night back in 2008. I’m watching the waiter of Chokladkoppen, still the same and still as hot and delicious as the chocolate he serves. An old Chinese couple next to me, he’s eating rice cookies; the ones I constantly used to eat when I was living there, and drinking water from the brand that I considered to be too expensive to buy. However, I was outraged by the massive crowd of tourists (including me) I found there, and how suddenly the beauty and calmness of the place had vanished.
Since I read Susan Sontag’s “On Photography”, I not only started to think differently about photography but about being a tourist as well. In general, Sontag talks about the habit of photographing in order to have an evidence that you were there, and sometimes nothing but that. There are people who try to capture moments which sometimes just can’t be held in the frame photography offers. I see hundreds of people taking pictures of samesame buildings, they place themselves in front of them, one after another. I got sad when I saw people on the ferry, filming the sunset with their mobile phones or DV recorders. It’s just like seeing precious life time being wasted.
Speaking of Susan Sontag, I happened to stumble upon a just opened exhibition space called Fotografiska, it’s close to Slussen, and just opened in May as I was told. They showed the Annie Leibowitz exhibition (which I already saw in C/O Berlin), but also some other stunning photographers like Vee Speers.
I must admit I consider myself a weird tourist, travel has mostly become stumbling opon things, buying stuff and sitting around doing nothing. I don’t visit museums very often and try to avoid places that are recommended in the guide books (Chokladkoppen is one, unfortunately). But maybe everyone has to see what travelling means to them. And if they like to take thousands of rather senseless pictures, be that as it may.
