Morten Torgersrud’s photographic practice has been based mostly in and around his native northern parts of Norway, but in a quite different way than we are used to from romanticized depictions of The High North. His projects can be seen as a continuation of the traditional landscape imagery, as well as a critique of the construct of national and local identity through photographic depictions. In Torgersrud’s work the local characteristics are usually absent; the landscape is simultaneously both specific and generalized.

His latest project, Lumps, shows us what usually lies outside the range of the photograph; beneath the soil. The project consists of a series of photographs depicting clods of mud dug out from the landscape in The High North, the northern region of Norway bordering to the arctic region and Russia. The lumps appear as abstract sculptures - studies in form and materiality. But in light of Torgersrud recent practice they are images of specific places, though with an even greater extent than previously they seem geographically unidentifiable. Thus, they oppose the prevailing method of dealing with landscape in photography, which is often characterized by a quest for something, identity-based and authentic. In Torgersrud’s view it is the actual form that is the photographs true content. In Lumps, through a formal approach to an increasingly politicized landscape - it is made visible how the photograph represents a place, while it has the capacity to draw fragments of place out of its original context. - Cornerkiosk Press