Tine Poppe
[b. Oslo, Norway]
//I am an artist photographer and graphic designer living and working in Oslo, Norway. My practice focuses on bringing attention to social, political, existential and environmental issues through art and documentary photography//
“My interest in female genital mutilation awoke after working on an assignment about agriculture and climate change for an NGO, The Development Fund [Utviklingsfondet] in Malawi, Africa. I was impressed by the women of Malawi, how they carry the fate and future of their families on their shoulders in one of the poorest countries hit by climate change in the world. In addition to the assignment from the NGO, I wanted to create my own project about the women, on my I return to Norway, I researched famous Malawi poets and discovered that a lot of the poetry were protests against female genital mutilation, which appeared to be a large part of a girl’s initiation into womanhood and an intrinsic part of some of the communities’ cultural heritage in Malawi.
It broke my heart to realise that probably a lot of the women and young girls I had met in the villages had undergone this mutilation.”
“In these different times, where everyday life is restricted, I sought a way to reflect upon and express the sense of isolation and vulnerability that has been imposed upon me.
Building on a previous project, I began collecting bouquets of flowers soon to be discarded. Visibly withered, drained and neglected, each flower’s imperfection reveals a history, a character and an expression which provoked a sense of empathy that stoically resists being ignored or rejected. Consequently, like the flowers themselves, the work does not praise perfection. Instead, each portrait creates a personal and vulnerable recognition of the universal vulnerability and co-dependency that is shared and represented by the subject.”
Tine Poppe, 2020
