THE UNBEARABLE LIGHTNESS OF GIVING A F**K – A THOUSAND FAROE ISLANDS by © Eija Mäkivuoti
The series studies phenomena within travel photography and mass tourism as well as the power of the social media as a shaper of world-views and narratives of the world. Foremost it studies the emerging mass tourism on the Faroe Islands through collaborative storytelling, in dialogue with some local people. This series focuses on the study of the generic visual aesthetics, as well as behaviours, emerging in the photo masses on the social media, foremost on Instagram – it is also an attempt to counter a one-sided imagery appearing to depict the Faroe Islands. An ever-growing mass of travel photographers arrive to depict the islands as a majestic and exotic place without almost any people, any contemporary architecture nor signs of contemporary life whatsoever. The cute villages are inhabited by some mysterious hobbit people. The performative photos are made in collaboration with some local people. The person is wearing a yellow raincoat, taking the spot as the tourist in the photo – they are symbolically taking back the power to show what the visitors ignore or do not choose to portray when they explore and discover the small island nation in the midst of the Atlantic Ocean. The yellow raincoat is a stereotype, a generic aesthetics, you see "the wanderer over the mist" wearing, when they are gazing at the romanticised natural scenery, the landscapes, they have discovered and collected into their photograph-trophies (Sontag, 1971) – this is done over and over again – in the same locations. The locals comment on how they see their land depicted by the visiting adventure photographers, the commercial travel photographers, the Insta-famous. Marjun's locations are from our walk around Tórshavn and Urd's locations from a road trip we made in Oct 2017. Mariann's locations are from the village she lives in. The project is a rhizome that is growing – there are many more dimensions emerging, some can be collected by the hashtags #tulogaf & #supernovatourist. This is part 1.
