Walking on Rivers

2013-2016

For the series Walking on Rivers Laura Böök has photographed Congolese refugees who have resettled in Northern Finland. Change and our ability to deal with change, as individuals and as a society, is a central theme of the project. Böök first met the families featured in the photographs as they had just arrived in Finland and were starting a new life after more than fifteen years in refugee camps. At the same time she was interested in documenting the ongoing changes  in their new home, Pudasjärvi, a small town on the Northern edge of Europe where half of the local population has moved out during the last decades.

The photographer's gaze is often nostalgic, attempting to capture what is disappearing. Laura Böök was interested in documenting the contemporary countryside – looking at what is now, and what could be. Places like Pudasjärvi are not what first comes to mind when thinking of a multicultural community, and that is what made it an interesting place to photograph. While working with the Congolese refugees, it has also been important that the focus is on the present and on the future starting to take shape, rather than the painful past.