Leif Sandberg: Beyond the Mirror

Leif Sandberg: Beyond the Mirror by Aline SmithsonJanuary 11, 2019

©Leif Sandberg

Leif Sandberg came late to photography. Seven years ago, after facing cancer and his own mortality, he set to work to bring a visual voice to his experiences with his project and book, Ending, that we featured on Lenscratch last year. He follows that series with, Beyond the Mirror, and has recently released a book with two versions: the International book published by Void and the Swedish edition published by Skreid Publishing that can be purchased on Leif’s site.

His publisher writes: If Ending resides before death and in its vicinity, Beyond the Mirror passes on to the other side of death. A journey in untouched land, with its starting point in Ending. With images of real things, the imagination helps to enter new worlds, as its told by Leif Sandberg in the book, “I want to travel in the crossroads between reality and fiction”.

The picture material has partially emerged during hikes at the Camino Santiago de Compostela. “The tranquility and the well-being of hiking has opened my mind for thoughts and extraterrestrial experiences that have penetrated the pictures and enriched the reality we see with our eyes.”

At the time of the project, Leif Sandberg scanned old negatives and his father’s holiday pictures from his archive. He found images of deserted landscapes that conveyed an uncertainty about where you are and became part of the depicted fragility of our existence. The project itself developed into worlds beyond what we see, “beyond the mirror”.

The two book covers of Beyond the Mirror

Born in 1943, Leif Sandberg, is a photographer from Stockholm, Sweden. He explores the inner self and existences to which we have no direct access through a process of experimentation and fantasy. His first book ‘Ending’, deals with fear and the aging process. It was nominated for the Kassel Photobook Award (2017) and named in other favourite selections of that year. His second book, ‘Beyond the Mirror’, published by Void in 2018, investigates consciousness and the worlds we do not see with our eyes.

He studied art history and philosophy at Stockholm University before deepening his photographic practice with artists such as Anders Petersen, JH Engström, Antoine d’Agata and Roger Ballen. His work has been exhibited in Stockholm and at the Landskrona Fotofestival.

Beyond the Mirror frontal cover INTERNATIONAL

Beyond the Mirror front cover INTERNATIONAL

Beyond the Mirror front cover SWEDISH

About Beyond the Mirror

The form-construction in the sky subsides into the supernatural and dubious experience I do not need. But there it is, rotating slowly with its small bright spots like windows in a large metallic worm. I hide in the car and drive home.

Death is omnipresent, but knowing that you do not know when it will arrive seems to remove the sense of its existence. A niggling but painful memory of everything you forget. How often do you remember the night when the magic of the moon brought you harmony. In Ending, panic and fear of ageing, displace into images of black pain and exploration of inner worlds that point to the unmapped territories of Beyond the Mirror.

The pilgrimage to Santiago de Compostela purifies one’s consciousness from everything but the power of life, and the repetitive experience shapes emblems that etch memories.

This is how I want to travel, at the crossroads of reality and fiction. – Leif Sandberg,