Clara Diesen
STILLS
to Martin Ålund’s paintings
1.
the gaze directed towards no one
a pause a gesture never completed
the still image freezes the moment
not for preserving for something else
the everyday space
the everyday landscape
the vertiginous landscape
the vertiginous space
2.
the photograph becomes a record of tenderness
proof of seconds that have remained
but no one explains what has happened
a body a proximity a breathtaking distance
the photograph is not a representation
but blurry proof that someone has been there
a trust in the image and every viewer a you
you
3.
when the gaze is fixed in a still image
it is not only in order to remember
but to freeze time to cut out
a piece of
reality
from the flow
the still is an interrupted movement
a marked boundary where we are able to see
the image falls open now
it insists upon this moment
unlike all the others
4.
by placing us in filmic situations
a staged reality
no difference between documentation and fiction
the viewer gets a sense of both recognizing
and participating in the reconstruction of a memory
to stage is also to document
an image can just as well be a truth
the photograph does not care about the difference
the image spreads itself out
the still image is always double
both a fact and a dream you have had
that which hurts becomes both visible and gentle
5.
a photograph bears traces
without revealing itself entirely
and viewing it always involves a risk
of falling into the landscape into the meadow
into the mountain
into a room that does not know whether it is
closed or open
the colors suggest a certain season a memory
or is it forgetfulness
a movement that has frozen
the light adheres to the surface
as if it no longer needed us
6.
all is still but bears traces of an earlier movement
something that just took place
and can no longer be reached
the image is not a memory
it is a presence
a dividing path with no direction
the grass leans a little and the sky retreats
everything is in rest and the waiting
for a loved one goes on
as if the next movement has already been determined
but not yet shown itself
7.
the colour is not a form
but a state
it is as if the image pauses
in the moment between dissolution and accumulation
a temporary foothold in something that otherwise
just slips away
we think we are preserving
but we are inventing
8.
someone points to a place that no longer exists
in the same form
the words are simple
here I stood
and immediately adjacent virtually invisible
was a love, or perhaps just the shadow of it
the photograph captures none of this
yet someone still asks
who is that in the image
it’s you
9.
the question seeks an answer that cannot be given
the face too distant to be recognized
memory shifts between voice and image
between here and there
hence the images move slowly
almost as though they are too weak to convey the story
the music repeats itself the voices fall apart
it becomes clear
by a gaze once focused
now detached from its context
10.
the longing remains but lacks direction
it becomes an atmosphere
a pressure in the air
a pain that can neither be fullfilled nor dissipated
memory is not an act of archiving
it is an ongoing processing
a hybrid of what we saw and what we have yet to see
a face that is almost discernible
shapes that recede into the shadows
others that shimmer
become a whole
11.
the image does not reveal who is visible
only that someone once stood there
an approach that is at the same time a distance
a presence that clings to its own landscape
stillness becomes a boundary
between emergence
and disappearance
the horizon divides the images into two parts
as though they no longer belong to each other
what is visible is land sky water
and the space inbetween – freedom
is what holds the gaze
Translation by Richard Griffith Carlsson
MARTIN ÅLUND, Efterbild / Afterimage, Ellerströms text & musik, Stockholm 2026