Since the middle of the 19^th century photography has been a tool for defining and controlling subjects, but also for confirming and visualising otherwise overlooked places and people. This is manifested in Framing Bodies – a selection of works from the Hasselblad Foundation collection. The exhibition features various photographic framings of the body in relation to four themes: surveillance, breaking norms, labour conditions and colonialism oppression.

The earliest photographs in the exhibition – Berg & Høeg’s private and playful portraits –  are from the late 1800s. However, the majority of the works are from the last 60 years, with Annica Karlsson Rixon’s images from a Russian queer community and Annika von Hausswolff’s still lifes with gold teeth from 2013 as the most recent acquisitions. The 15 artists in the exhibition highlight otherwise untold fates and circumstances. They offer alternatives to established views on the world, but they also remind us of photography’s normative and controlling power, which is still exercised today.

Framing Bodies is the second in a series of thematic exhibitions with works from the Hasselblad Foundation collection. The first exhibition Still Life Work Life was shown in 2013.

Framing Bodies presents works by:

Bolette Berg & Marie Høeg, Ernest Cole, Ann Christine Eek, Walker Evans, Bruce Gilden, Nan Goldin, Annika von Hausswolff, Annica Karlsson Rixon, Kent Klich, Adriana Lestido, Ulf Lundin, Santiago Mostyn, Jorma Puranen, Ann-Sofi Sidén and Christer Strömholm.

Curators: Dragana Vujanovic and Louise Wolthers, Hasselblad Foundation.

The book Framing Bodies is published in relation to the exhibition, by Art & Theory Publishing.