Hans Malm - Sleeping with the Lights on

Hans Malm left his hometown Gustavsberg, east of Stockholm in Sweden, in the mid 80s and the impulse to create the images in this book emerged upon his return after twenty years, now settling down with his wife and their two kids. Sweden certainly has its share of industrial communities. Few as ambitiously planned as Gustavsberg though – the Swedish industrial community par excellence. Its hub, the world famous porcelain factory, is now just a small business and will soon make way for the construction of apartment buildings. All the things you find in other towns you will search in vain for here. Because that is the way industrial communities are, characterized by absence and distance rather than abundance and urban densification.
Hans Malm wanders out into the dark of night, sets up his camera and allows the emulsion of the film to slowly capture the sparse light that although barely detectable by the human eye, is there nonetheless. The resulting images are multi-facetted, beautiful and at the same time desolate, addressing issues such as change and loss.