Pregnant with a twist
A pregnant woman is by definition beautiful. She has a glow about her, people like to say. Vibeke Tandberg's photo series Undo challenges this notion.
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The series consists of seven pictures, each depicting Tandberg in a late stage of pregnancy. "Undo" is a command in the computer program Adobe Photoshop that entails going back one step to the previous thing you did in the program. Three of the pictures in the series are hanging in the BB building at Haukeland.
The pictures have been subtly manipulated, some body parts are stretched or enlarged. The full figure photographs highlight a kind of cramped discomfort in their own body that many pregnant women experience. The pictures are intimate, to the extent that they are perceived as self-disclosing, but with a liberating touch of humor.
Vibeke Tandberg (1967 -) is a photographer, and lives and works in Oslo. She was among the first in Norway to concentrate on digitally manipulated photography, and is today one of our most prominent artists, both in this country and internationally. Tandberg is often compared to the American photographer Cindy Sherman, as she takes pictures of herself, but the situations she stages are more plausible. If we do not look too closely, we can easily believe that the pictures are documentary excerpts of Tandberg's own life.
NORA SØRENSEN VAAGE