Anja Niemi is has been selected as one of Art Review magazine's Future Greats (see current December issue, p.102)
"I merge myself into the interior of rooms filled with layers of decay. Houses and buildings with a past but no future. Their stories are written in the walls, and mine emerges in the interaction with them. When I stand in these empty rooms, their walls screaming out for my pity, and me screaming out for theirs, I try to remember that sweet moment of holding my breath. Then I take the picture.
I once crawled through a pitch-black basement searching for a staircase up to rooms with daylight. There was nothing in sight but a ripped-apart Barbie doll, and a baby’s chew toy; both objects lit by the narrow shaft I went through to get in. The uncertainty of whom or what might be hiding in the darkness makes my heart race in a very familiar way. It is my reality, but it is invisible, unless it is photographed"
"I merge myself into the interior of rooms filled with layers of decay. Houses and buildings with a past but no future. Their stories are written in the walls, and mine emerges in the interaction with them. When I stand in these empty rooms, their walls screaming out for my pity, and me screaming out for theirs, I try to remember that sweet moment of holding my breath. Then I take the picture.
I once crawled through a pitch-black basement searching for a staircase up to rooms with daylight. There was nothing in sight but a ripped-apart Barbie doll, and a baby’s chew toy; both objects lit by the narrow shaft I went through to get in. The uncertainty of whom or what might be hiding in the darkness makes my heart race in a very familiar way. It is my reality, but it is invisible, unless it is photographed"