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Introduction text by the video artist Bill Viola: 

 

Joakim Eneroth’s new work of images and texts, Short Stories of the Transparent Mind, is the vivid record of a personal journey to uncover the fundamental emptiness that lies beyond and beneath our day-to-day experience of the world. Punctuated by stark and sometimes personally revealing texts, he presents us with a series of striking photographs – naked, vulnerable figures standing in a nocturnal landscape; empty rooms miraculously animated by light and mind; a jumble of footprints, tracks, and vacant streets leading nowhere; signs emptied of their meaning, rooms emptied of their contents and individuals emptied of their personas and limitations.

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Eneroth’s spiritual meditation practice, and his camera’s trained inner eye, allows him to peel back the layers of the self and the external surfaces that obstruct our inner vision. The result is a profound meditation on the key Buddhist concepts of Impermanence and Emptiness in contemporary life, and the fullness that emerges within us when our inner mirror is finally polished and the clutter long blocking our vision is cleansed. Joakim Eneroth has said that his goal is to reach the point when 'the story line fades away' and we arrive at 'a moment of being no one going nowhere'. His is a journey we all should take.

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Introduction text by Patrick Amsellem Director General at Nationalmuseum in Stockholm, Sweden: 

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Short Stories of the Transparent Mind opens with a self-portrait in the nude. The artist stands alone in a nocturnal pastoral landscape, a quiet scene dramatically lit from the side by a flash that highlights the lush terrain against the dark night. But the flash also effaces features and every detail of the body; to turn the gaze upon oneself is a great challenge, especially when the elusive mind is the focus. Life is full of distractions and it is often difficult to be fully present in the moment and aware of just being. It is easier to keep busy and follow customary tracks, to keep the blinds down and only occasionally peek out. Nevertheless there are instants when we feel in contact with that immediate and wordless experience here and now, beyond the control of a roving and rational mind. These are the stories of Joakim Eneroth’s transparent mind – explorations of the complexity of experience, the naked moments of perception without judgment or interpretation.

    As in many of his previous bodies of work, Eneroth’s conceptual approach is never a gesture or a pose, but always deeply integrated with existential concerns. Swedish Red, for example, a series from 2008 of the red facades of traditional Swedish houses, belongs formally in the tradition of Berndt and Hilla Becher’s typologies. But Eneroth never pretends to be objective and the conceptual mode is infused here with a contemplation of anxiety and isolation in the midst of a seemingly comfortable but alienating uniformity. In Short Stories of the Transparent Mind Eneroth pushes the boundaries further and expands the notion of the photographic essay. The dynamic integration of text and image brings together many short stories that blend a poetic and philosophical attitude with powerful autobiographical references. The personal narrative’s openness and fragility anchor the reflections in real life and points towards constant change as a central characteristic of life in gener

al and a means to develop new perspectives. Thus Eneroth’s fertile combination of text and image facilitates the representation of the wordless and intangible state of mind that is the backdrop of life.

    In a culture where screen lives sometimes seem more important than real lives, Eneroth’s foregrounding of the movements of the mind is a healthy cue. The many shifting views of the same leafy hillside landscape through a window reflect the constantly shifting positions of the mind – worried, restless, maybe bored, deeply concentrated or calm. And some layers of the mind only appear when the mind is still, when the chase from one thing or thought to the other ends and the ongoing inner commentary surrenders. Like the merging of mind and sky, Eneroth’s photography conveys the richness of that experience.

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