The High North Tour 2021: Photographer Martin Losvik – From Nomad to Contemporary Archaeologist
Valnesfjord: “Security disappeared early on, so I am well trained for working from my home office”, says photographer and artist Martin Losvik from Valnesfjord, Nordland county. He has lived like a nomad for years. Now, he works on what he refers to as contemporary archaeology in his own immediate environment.
I randomly run into Losvik while he strolls along the streets of Valnesfjord, a small hamlet between Fauske and Bodø in Northern Norway. Our meets usually are like this. Before the pandemic, we both moved about in different pace, and sometimes also in the same pace.
Being a freelance photographer and artist, he was one out of many to take a hard hit when society shut down.
Wild, beautiful and merciless
But being a freelancer, he is also used to living hand-to-mouth.
“Everything as it was, really”, he says.
Did your artistic expression, your photographs, and your more humoristic outlets such as the Facebook project “Losvik Municipality”, change during the pandemic?
“No”, Martin Losvik says and adds:
“It is probably more positive, as I have more time to spare for the environment that I know the best, my own neighborhood. And that is what should be my main motive. Where I am, at any given time.”
The last notification from Losvik municipality, the municipality living up to its slogan “Wild, beautiful and merciless”, on its Facebook page is filled with empathy for the people living in the capital.
“Do you live in Oslo and are not sure about life, now that everything is closed, shut, liquidated or postponed until next year? We have a proposal for you. Move to Losviknes. We have had it like that for generations already!”
See the whole interview with photographer and artist Martin Losvik on top of this article.
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This article was originally published in Norwegian and has been translated by HNN's Elisabeth Bergquist.