In 2013-2014 Emil Andersson visited the area around Almeria in southeastern Spain for approximately 5 weeks. This is a very particular area, where a lot of the tensions and paradoxes of Western Europe play out in the landscape. Around Almeria there are enormous areas covered by commercial plastic greenhouses, right next to natural reserves and beach side tourism. The proximity to Africa brings a constant flow of immigrants who are often exploited as cheap labour within the greenhouse industry. An industry that serves people in the north of Europe with cheap vegetables and northern companies with huge profits. During his visit Andersson was staying with people through Couchsurfing, occasionally sleeping outside, covering kilometre after kilometre by foot, and documenting the places he saw with his medium format camera. This in an attempt at grasping the growing tensions he could feel in the wake of the financial crisis of 2008.
“When I got home, I honestly wasn’t sure what to do with all this material and the pictures ended up in a drawer. Over ten years later I picked them up again and started thinking of this trip and all the memories that the pictures themselves couldn’t show. Together with the photographs I decided to use texts written from memory that retell and describe places and encounters, as a way of creating a constellation that tells the story of this place and time. A place and time I think is crucial to consider if we are to understand the development within Europe over the past decade.“
Emil Andersson
The Food
6.9.-26.10.2025
Photo North – Nordic Photographic Centre, foyer gallery