This year's festival exhibitor - Kyrre Lien!

Kyrre Lien (Foto: Signe Fuglesteg Luksengard)

He has photographed in East Ukraine, Gaza and Burma to document social problems, and had commissions for the New York Times and Al Jazeera where he has used a combination of stills, video and 360-degree video. He has received several awards, including for the Picture of the year award in 2014.

The Internet Warriors

Most famous is Lien for the project "Nettkrigerne" or "The Internet Warriors", published in both VG and The Guardian, as well as a book and as an travelling outdoor exhibition that has so far been in Oslo, Trondheim and Fredrikstad. On the Day of Photography in Horten on the 19^th and 20^th of August the exhibition appears as a separate presentation.

For the last three years, Kyrre has traveled around the globe portraying online debaters. Thousands upon thousands of commentary fields have been reviewed to find the 25 internet warriors that he has portrayed. Some of the people who are portrayed are among the most active debaters online. The selection of thye images has attempted to be representative of the people who debate and is based on demographic statistics from the book "Likes - Dislikes". The project is supported by Fritt Ord and the Bertha Foundation.

Photo: Kyrre Lien, Portrait of Kjell Frode Tislevoll (40), from the series "The Internet Warriors".
Occupation: Salesclerk, Studies: Stord vidaregåande skule, Lives in: Høyanger, Sogn og Fjordane, Marital status: Single, Cause: The Environment

Out of the echo chamber

" I speak to those who have opinions that are beyond what we otherwise might hear. I want to figure out why they engage and why they communicate the way they do," says Kyrre Lien.

He has met people who want to kill Muslims, a grandmother in Russia who hates homosexuals, an Syrian in Lebanon, who isn’t fan of the West, the United States and Israel, and an activist in Denmark who devotes all time to raise awareness about climate change.

Photo: Kyrre Lien, Portrait of Sina Staes Janevska (42), from the series "Internet Warriors".
Occupation: On disability nsurance, Education: Dance and Music at Trøndertun Folkehøyskole, Residence: Stjørdal, Marital Status: Married, Cause: Protect Norway against Sharia

Comments outside of what’s considered normal

"It's the people who have the harshest comments that are the most interesting. For example, a character called Robert. He hates all Muslims and immigration, but is happily married to a woman from Thailand. Some of these people doesn’t seem able to see themselves from the outside. They suffer from double standards, explains the 26-year-old. 

Kyrre Lien believes a project as this is very important in today. "We must become better at listening to them because for a long time we have not recognized or listened to opinions outside the norm. What we've seen with "Brexit", right-wing populism in Europe in addition to Trump, shows that there are more voices out there than what the media has caught up with. I think it's important that both sides are able to listen to each other”, said the photographer.
The project is ongoing, and Lien still travels around and films, interviews and photographs active online warriors worldwide.

The project is ongoing, and Lien still travels around and films, interviews and photographs active online warriors worldwide.

 
See the Norwegian version of the project on vg.no and the international version here.

Ashleigh Jones (21) from Cardiff, Wales is interviewed and filmed by Kyrre Lien.

The humanistic picture

The theme for this year’s edition the Day of Photography is "The Humanistic Picture" - a way to understand the world through photography. The overriding questions are; How can photographs make a difference? Can a photo tell something new or different about the world we live in? Can films and photography affect how we look at the world? The world is changing and we wish to discuss this through lectures, films and exhibitions.

Disruptions in urban space

In addition to the "Internet Warriors", we have invited the photographer collective #Dysturb from France, which uses public space to make visual information accessible to a wide audience with the use of large posters. Having pasted posters in Paris, London, New York, Amsterdam, Bogota, Krakow, Copenhagen, Palermo, Sao Paolo, Quebec and Toronto, Horten is the first city in Norway to become "dysturbed". #Dysturb presents photojournalism in a new way, photojournalism that isn’t bound by the restrictions of regular news channels. They believe in the ability to arm the youth with tools to better understand the images and information they have around each day, by engaging in the street, schools and online.

Photography and films that can teach us something about the world

Elli Trier from the magazine Fotografi and Paragon Features talks about movies and photography. Paragon Features is a multimedia documentary agency based in Oslo, consisting of Lars Andreas Ellingsgard Øverli, Alexander Andersen, Martin Slottemo Lyngstad, Anton Ligaarden and Anders Idland Melchior. The documentary project "From youth" is a portrait of Norwegian youth and was published in the autumn of 2014 as a printed and digital book, exhibition and an online documentary series that has several international awards.

On Saturday there is an outdoor screening of  "Human - the movie" on the lawn in front of the White House (yes it is actually called the White House). The film by the famous photographer Yann Arthus-Bertrand raises questions about the role of humans, human interaction, humanism and dignity. The starting point for the almost three-hour long Human is interviews made with different people all over the world. It is powerful and at times painful. The sequences are broken by beautiful nature photographs that describe human activities.

The Photography Day(s)

This year's Days of Photography streches over over two days and shares entrance tickets and festival-area with Horten Food & Beer Festival. This guarantees a feast for all senses, with exhibitions, lectures, food, music, drinks and a good festival atmosphere!