Sigurður Páll Pálsson

Minds at Large

[ EPF 2017 – YOUNG TALENT AWARD / FUJIFILM FINALIST ]

 

” …each one of us is potentially a Mind at Large.”
– Aldous Huxley; The doors of Perception.

I would like to take long expeditions visiting the last shamans and spiritual philosophers of the world. From the Shamiis of Norway to the Yogis of India, Hmongs of China to the indeginous people of Australia, Jodorowskys tarot readings to the Ayahuasqueros in Peru, the Buryat of Siberia to Jon Kabat Zinn in North America and Baekyangsa Buddhist temple in South Korea to attending a Tibetan Funeral to name a few.

 

 

Although by the documentative nature of such a project, my plan is not to portray the journey in an anonymous stand off-ish impersonal way but transparently and honestly portray and document a personal discovery rather than your average photojournalistic documentary style. Not to look at them, but to be with them.

 

What Im after is that after years of being obsessed with the surreal lying and distortion of reality in all photographs, which i still agree with, I’ve found that by creating your own world right you can reveal an absolute truth and real sincerity in your expression and the subjects through this fictional medium. And that’s what I’d like to achieve with these people; gather their teachings on life alternative to our way of thinking. An interconnectedness through all things and a deep respect of the earth. In an honest way portray these people. To learn about life.
A spiritual narrative through dream like state photos.

 

 

Scrambled with photographs, honest notes and writings, it would be presented in a “dummy” way. As if found in the jungle. To tell what happened. To photograph the unphotographable. To photograph a state of mind. To photograph life itself through the Minds at Large.

The dream would be to eventually publish the massive book which would be an art piece in itself but also I could, after every trip, perhaps contribute to Burn and ask you to publish each story on a regular basis.

 

 

Short Bio

My name is Sigurður Páll Pálsson and I am a 25 year old boy from Reykjavík, Iceland currently living in Copenhagen, Denmark. Starting skateboarding at the age of 12 and the ideology of it led me to quit school (which i hated) at the age of 17 after an offer to go skate and meet my heroes in San Francisco. The story seems irrelevant I’m sure, but it has shaped my way of living and thought beyond words and which would ultimately catapult me into the strange world of photography and passion for this project. I saw there were no limits or constructed rules to photography at all and I was free to wander, express and tear up the format as freely as I pleased. Since then Ive been doing it non-stop, publishing DIY zines, having shows, board graphics, numerous collaborations and recently graduated from the renowned Fatamorgana the Danish school of art photography.

 

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The Emerging Photographer Fund is supported by generous donors to the Magnum Foundation