To Come Within Reach of You (Gunnar Heldebro, Hässelby Strandväg 55, 165 65 Hässelby, Sweden) is a body of work that presents Heldebro’s obsessive desire to ascertain as well as reveal a true image of her father. After her parents divorce, Heldebro knew little of her father’s new life. She began traveling between New York and Stockholm to watch her father unnoticed, not allowing him to affect her conception of him. She allowed herself voyeuristic access to every facet of his world, including his home where he lives together with his girlfriend and her two children.
Rooted in surveillance photography the work plays with the boundaries between public and private as Heldebro incorporates aspects of obsessive performance art and vernacular photography, creating a narrative by documenting her father and the mundane life that he had created for himself in Stockholm. While the series explores her obsession to understand him and to make sense of his earlier, unexpected life changes, the image of his identity emerges, in many ways, as arbitrary.
The Finnish Museum of Photography
Project Space
The Cable Factory, The Cable Factory, Tallberginkatu 1 G, 00180 Helsinki
