Halvman

Meet Halvman, an artistic alter ego who gives form to memories, loss and inner landscapes through images. In an artistic practice shaped by war, exclusion, trauma and mental ill health, Halvman explores how experiences linger in bodies, places and images.

“There is a clear connection between people’s collective actions and the traces they leave in individual lives. War appears not only as a historical or political event, but as something that continues to live on in people’s memories, bodies and identities long after the events themselves have ended.”

A country, a language, a home or someone close to you. Loss is always present. Life continues with difficult memories. In Proludium, a series of monochrome image montages, memories, emotions and fragments of experiences that have left their mark are recreated.

After experiencing war, the artist felt a need to return to memories that would not disappear. By combining his own photographs with images from open image archives, Halvman created new images from fragments of different places and contexts: a high-rise building from one place, smoke from another, a face, a corridor or a landscape. In this way, Proludium emerged as a montage of memories and visual fragments that continued to live on long after the events themselves had ended.

More than a hundred images were created, but at some point the relationship to them changed. The need to continue became less urgent. By returning again and again to the same themes, situations and emotions, the artist found a way to process what had previously existed only as fragments. The images did not disappear, but their hold began to change.