The book Tell My Love Now unfolds along two tracks:
The first track is a journey through Russia during the winter of 2015-2016, in a country that was then still open and accessible to foreigners. It was a time when people had the freedom to speak, travel, be seen, and welcome me as a photographer documenting the daily lives and emotions of my Russian peers.
The second track is an intimate journey through the healing of my husband Jacob’s clinical depression, which he struggled with during the winter of 2023-2024 in Denmark. In earlier years, I had traveled with Jacob in Russia, and the photographs from those trips have become a red thread in our relationship, depicting the emotions we share and long for.
These two journeys, physically separated in time, unfolded simultaneously within me.
With Tell My Love Now, I aim to express something that has been—and still is—a source of conflict within me. It is challenging to truly understand what depression is. In my work, I do not attempt to answer the impossible but rather provide viewers with clues or tools to examine this painful condition up close—a condition that affects every member of a family. The complex nature of depression piqued my curiosity and compelled me to better understand what my loved one was experiencing.
Through the creation of this work, I began to view the illness as something liberating, as a powerful message that ultimately brings about positive change. This was my way of surviving daily life with work and two small children. It was my way of communicating with Jacob, who—in a sense—had disappeared into another world. In other words, it feels undeniable that this work was created out of an inner necessity. A rare and honest approach that brings us closer to ourselves and helps define who we are as people and as artists.
It is also a source of conflict within me to attempt to understand what Russia’s war against Ukraine provokes in the lives of my Russian friends, who are no longer free to communicate their struggles and frustrations. I wish for the world to come closer to the Russian individuals who share the same emotional states as you and me. To focus on the longing we have in common. I want to honor the freedom my Russian friends granted me by allowing me to photograph them. I want to show compassion for those Russians forced to submit to a dictator, unable to protest, travel, or write sincere messages to me because they fear the system. This painful time for the Ukrainian and Russian peoples gives us space to reflect on our own daily lives and strive to keep our minds free, even in a controlled society.
As an artist, I am driven by the challenge of combining elements and stories that, at first glance, do not seem connected. To hold two parallel narratives with an immediate, untold, and emotional link to each other. I love giving the audience the freedom to connect these elements and leaving space for self-reflection.
In this way, Tell My Love Now becomes a story that involves us all—a story of enduring love, longing, and hope. Through text and images—portraits and everyday narratives—it explores the outer and inner spaces that bring us closer to humanity and to one another.
