A Day in History - Andrea Gjestvang

Combining photographic portraits and testimonies, One Day in History concerns the experiences and thoughts of 43 young people, who survived the terror attack at the Labour Party’s youth camp at Utøya outside Oslo on July 22, 2011. Published the year after the incident, the project captures a moment in time in which memories of what happened were still very raw.

The massacre was carried out by right wing-extremist Anders Behring Breivik, dressed as a policeman. He killed 68 and injured more than 110 people, 55 of them seriously. Around 500 survived the massacre on Utøya, more than half of whom were young people under the age of 18.

For six months, Andrea Gjestvang traveled around Norway and portrayed the young survivors when they were back in their home environments. The perpetrator was sentenced to 21 years in prison. The survivors live on with their scars – both visible and mental – many of which may never fully heal.

Adolescence is a time for big dreams, ambitions and aspirations. The young people Gjestvang met, were all longing for an ordinary life.

The work is published as a book in Norway called «En dag i historien» (Pax, 2012). It has been printed in Newsweek, M Le Mond, D La Republica, SZ Magazin, The
Sunday Times and Geo, among others. The project has been exhibited in
Künstlerhaus Dortmund (2019), National Photographic Museum of Colombia
(Bogota, 2019), Galerie Vasli Souza (Malmø, 2014), Munchner Stadtmuseum (München, 2013), Somerset House (London, 2013), Benaki Museum (Athens, 2013) and at various photo festivals worldwide.