4 years, from 2015 til 2019 I photographed at "Hjørnet", Oslo S. The group changed over the years. The ones hanging out in 2015 were different 4 years later, like a river, new water coming inn all the time. The true nature of this hang-out spot, young people in search of their own kind. To nurture lonelyness, cultivate who they are, make friends, and then move on in their lives.
The central station is not a place most parents would like their kids to hang out, like every sentral station around the world, it´s like a honey comb attracting bees. All sorts of life and a vulnerable gang.
They told stories, where they came from, heartbreaking stories from some; in this group of people they were less vulnerable, a paradox and made me curious. Not fitting in where they should have felt safe and included. Still the opposite happened, sosciety, home, friends made them feel foreighn.
Security guys tried their best to dissolve this group, shushing them away, out in the cold. A couple of sigs, and back in again. After school, before going home, at night, whenever they felt this urge to melt into something warm, still allowed to be anonymous. These people struck a cord to my own juvenille experience. Some of them became my friends, even though I could be a mother or a grandmother to most of them. A few came to my studio to have their portraits done. Even though my engagement in this project culminated in an exhibition at Fotografiens hus, we still keep in contact.
At some level these young people mirrored my own juvenile past, and endeavour into the big city, some 40 years earlier. Same anonymously, not asking too many questions, leaving people alone, keeping company, comforting. People who saved me, young folks like me, huddled together to find our way. Almost all of us escaped from where we came from, narrowminded corners of the country. Same story, including new ethnic groups, with the same feeling of being lost. I was struck by the similarities. Not feeling home. Not being rigt. Outsiders or just misfits, the most beautiful people among us. And yet, in a state very easy to misstep, ending up in a the dark corner of life. As such, this is light. Hjørnet - the Corner - has made a difference to many.
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