DIAFRAGMA
Published on Multipress
All photographs by Signe Fuglesteg Luksengard
Design by Signe Fuglesteg Luksengard / Multipress
24,5x 34cm, 78 pages in special made box
Edition of 300
Also as a special handmaid artist book printed on Awagami paper in edition of 3.
Diafragma explores how life imprints itself on the body through breath, rhythm, and internal movement, with particular attention to feminine cycles and forms of resilience. The work treats the body not as a fixed form but as a layered continuum shaped by emotional residues, generational traces and subtle internal shifts. Through layered and tactile imagery, it reflects on the unseen rhythms and pressures that shape our lives. The title diafragma—referring to the diaphragm muscle—serves as a metaphor for the interplay between the emotional and physical self.
More than a conventional photo book, Diafragma invites an embodied experience where the reader can engage with the imagery in a multitude of intriguing and unforeseen directions. The book is composed of folded sheets in varying sizes, all housed within a custom-made box. To engage with it, the reader must physically interact with the structure—unfolding the pages in multiple directions, touching its textures, and, in a sense, breathing with it.
Diafragma won the Hasselblad Photobook Award and was among the winners of the photobook prize at Belfast Photo Festival. The book is published with support from Norsk Fotografisk Fond, Norske Fagfotografers Fond, Fritt Ord, and Kulturdirektoratet.
“Her photographs delve into the emotional and atmospheric world of introspection by looking with attention at the delicate nature of both the human body and the natural world. Viewers are encouraged to arrange the individual sheets like puzzle pieces on a tabletop to observe the varied interactions between images and how they illustrate life’s non-linear path. The photographs are evocative, often transforming organic elements such as flower petals, human hair or flesh, dew on a flower, or reverberant window light into vibrant scenes that elicit an immediate, visceral response, compelling the reader to slow down and deeply engage with the book’s form and content. The whispering sound of the paper unfolding and folding, though subtle, is loud enough to leave an impression, drawing the viewer deeper into the book’s physical presence. Visually, the striking beauty and vibrancy of the photographs command the viewer’s full attention.
While the power of the integrated object quality of this book functions very well with the images being interleaved together in an unconventional construction, it does not diminish the fact that the photographs stand alone as striking individual images. The overall quality of the work is characterized by gentle, carefully observed moments that might often be overlooked or occasionally deemed unworthy subjects for art. One particular photograph, a close-up of a toilet bowl with egg-yolk yellow water, remains memorable. Depending on the day, it can appear as a sunny-side-up egg or an unflushed toilet, yet it consistently registers as beautiful, regardless of interpretation. Several other images, like the close-up texture and color of the backside of a person’s hand, an up close fragmented scene of a person’s armpit with the hair defying gravity, or a snowy night where falling snowflakes appear enormous or minuscule depending on their downward flight’s distance from the camera, are strongly reminiscent of Rinko Kawauchi’s spirit of small observations”
From book review by Collectors Daily. Read more here.
Selected exhibition views