By Joachim Adrian
Imagine a classic lecture hall. High ceilings. Large windows on each side, where sunlight streams in in the morning and the curtains wave in the summer breeze. Row upon row of chairs. And at the front. An old lectern.
My story begins right there. In the lecture hall at Grundtvig’s Folk High School in Frederiksborg. And it starts with the word.
On the one hand, the story is about my discovery of The Living Word, as it was revealed to me here in the lecture hall. On the other hand, it is about my rediscovery of The Living Word. Now through photography. Which is my window on the world. I am a trained photojournalist and have worked as a press photographer at Politiken. I am a visual storyteller. This is my story about words and images, and about how they can meld together in the folk high school.
Now through photography. Which is my window on the world.
Joachim Adrian
I will show my story in three scenes.
Scene one
The year is 1917. It is summer. Folk high school girls in their light summer dresses jostle in the lecture hall. The lecture is to be given by Holger Begtrup, the principal who founded Frederiksborg Folk High School 20 years previously and who has made such a success of it.
Holger Begtrup is well-known for his skills as a speaker. They say that he would leave his pupils spellbound and that when he spoke everything came to life. He would talk about history. About literature. About Grundtvig. He breathed life into Christianity and mythology. He told stories.
And he was particularly famous for his lecture about “Adam Homo”, which was really about literature. About the author Paludan-Müller’s magnum opus from the 1850’s. A novel in verse entitled Adam Homo. As I picture it – and have been able to gather from reading about it – part of Holger Begtrup’s lecture was really just a retelling of the story from the book.
Holger Begtrup is well-known for his skills as a speaker. They say that he would leave his pupils spellbound and that when he spoke everything came to life.
Joachim Adrian
A story about falling in love. About temptation. About primal urges and sin. About making a choice. And about making the wrong choice.
Adam Homo. The two words mean “man” in Hebrew and Latin respectively, and so what Holger Begtrup launches into that summer of 1917 is nothing less than a story about being human.
In one of the rows of listeners sits a young girl. Karoline Jensen. She sits bolt upright, lapping up his words. She is not very well-read herself, so right here in this room, in this lecture hall, the world is opening up for her.
And we know this. Because 60 years later she publishes Miss Jensen’s memoirs, in which she rediscovers, amongst other things, her diaries from that period.
She describes in her diary for the summer of 1917 what it felt like to be sitting there listening to Holger Begtrup’s lecture about “Adam Homo”:
“My time at folk high school gave me so much food for thought and so much ballast in my life that I now had a stronger will to live and found even wider horizons (…) And I can remember that when Holger Begtrup read Adam Homo, it was almost more than I could bear. Afterwards, I had to go out into the garden and hide myself away behind a bush and weep for Alma. All these new things I was hearing had such a profound effect on me.”
Just think. She was sitting in the lecture hall listening to the word. The living word. And had to rush out behind a bush and cry.
There is such power in this.
For me, this is the family silver that has been handed down to us from Grundtvig and Holger Begtrup. The living word – which I now with due reverence administer. Can this be done with photography?
Scene two
The year is 2019. It is summer. In flowery dresses, in freshly ironed shirts, in worn torn jeans. Yes, wearing all sorts they jostle into the lecture hall. Men and women. There is a lecture.
In principle, all I have to do is to show them my work as a photographer. Show them some of what I have produced. But then, I decide, that is not it. It has to be more than that. I decide that essentially what I have to do is to end with a story about being human.
This, therefore, is how I start.
“This is NOT a camera,” I say, holding something we would normally call a camera up in front of the audience.
“For me, this is a key. A key to places I would not otherwise have been. To milieus where I do not belong. And to people I do not know.”
Pause. I continue.
“I continue to be amazed that, just because I carry this key, I can simply step into the lives of other people. And sometimes right deep down inside where they are most vulnerable. Have most to lose. In some of life’s most crucial moments. So that afterwards I can step outside again and tell a story about what I have experienced. About what I saw, about what I encountered.”
Pause. I put the camera down.
“And I believe it is important. To tell stories. That we human beings tell our stories to each other. Because that way we all get to understand a little more about those people with whom we share this earth. Through stories, we get to understand a little better that people are different. But perhaps, in reality, when stories are at their best, we get to understand that we are not that different after all. And in the best stories of all, we suddenly arrive at a better understanding of ourselves.”
I turn on the projector.
“So now I am going to tell you the story of Mikkel.”
From here on, I show them a series of pictures of a boy called Mikkel. Mikkel, whom I filmed at an orphanage. But I do not talk about the photo techniques. I do not tell them about all the methods. I use the pictures as a starting point, as I also did when I first presented them to the Politiken newspaper. I let the pictures be what they are. A story from life.
I use the pictures as a starting point, as I also did when I first presented them to the Politiken newspaper. I let the pictures be what they are. A story from life.
Joachim Adrian
Mikkel is 17. And his orphanage is going to close down. I am with him for his last night. The night when he has to say goodbye and leave behind what has ended up becoming his new family. In its own way, it is a very condensed story about something we all in various ways have been through. Or will go through. Saying goodbye. Standing on our own feet.
In that way, there is in Mikkel’s story the same underlying story that there was in Holger Begtrup’s lecture about Adam Homo. It is a story about being human.
I give the lecture on a Tuesday evening on a summer course. On Wednesday morning at breakfast one of the course participants comes up to me. I am sitting there, my mouth full of bread and cheese, when she slips me a folded slip of paper and hurries away.
On the paper is written:
“Dear Joachim,
So beautiful to hear about Mikkel (…). The series was wonderfully honest, full of warmth and the courage to show us something of your inner self… As I sit here writing, a small tear wells up – it touched the young girl in me, the parent in me, the therapist in me and the marvellous fact that I have just been there, with you and your story at the photo folk high school.
Anette”
I love that little note. It may well be that she did not need to run off behind a bush to weep over all the new things she had learnt. But she sat in her room at the folk high school with a tear on her cheek. After she had seen the story.
This leads me to the next scene. For does the living word have to stop there? In the lecture hall? The students should almost be allowed to experience it. The story about being human. LIVE.
Scene Three
Andrea is standing waiting on the steps of the folk high school. A little nervous. She is going to meet Nanna from the department for young people with chronic or long-term illnesses at the National Hospital.
On the photography course we have immersed ourselves in a project. In it, every student is paired up with a young person saddled with a history of serious illness. Because that is something we can do, when we have a camera around our neck. We would like to tell their story. Each and every one of them. About being young, even though you are ill.
Suddenly the bus from the hospital is coming towards us. Out comes Nanna. She is in a wheelchair. Andrea and Nanna meet right there on the steps. They do not know each other. Not yet.
Andrea shows Nanna round the folk high school. They talk. And they have a job to do.
Andrea is to use pictures to show who Nanna is. Pictures they are going to make together.
Nanna suffers from chronic pain in her feet and coccyx, central sensitisation and asthma. She tells Andrea candidly about these things. That is why she is sitting in a wheelchair. That is why she has been attending the National Hospital for so many years.
Darkness has fallen, and they go up to our photo studio together. They have booked half an hour.
Halfway through the session, I sneak in to see how it is going. The first thing that strikes me is that the wheelchair is standing outside the studio, empty.
Andrea has got Nanna out of the wheelchair and placed her on a stool. She has set up some gorgeous lighting and is busy photographing a lovely young girl. Not a sick person. Not a wheelchair user. But a young person. As herself.
Afterwards they sit in the computer room, clicking through the photos on the screen. They sit there, relaxed, laughing, at ease with each other.
They end up choosing a pretty good portrait. A lovely picture of Nanna sitting in something resembling a yoga position. With an expression. There might be a smile. Or maybe not. There is something a bit Mona Lisa about it.
They agree to meet another day at Nanna’s, so Andrea can also photograph Nanna in her own environment. At home, where she loves playing her guitar in bed.
I see Andrea that same evening on the steps after she has said goodbye to Nanna. Andrea has tears in her eyes.
It is a privilege to be seen. To have someone who takes the trouble to tell your story. And it is a huge honour to be the person who is allowed to do it.
Joachim Adrian
Deeply moved at having met another human being. A person with a story like that. So different. And yet so much the same. And one with whom she has shared so much this evening in such intimacy. And most of all, Andrea was honoured to be allowed to be the person who would pass on this story.
The outcome of it all is an exhibition in the atrium of the National Hospital. On a rainy day in December, we arrive from the folk high school for the opening. The young people on the photos are just as proud as the young photographers.
It is a privilege to be seen. To have someone who takes the trouble to tell your story. And it is a huge honour to be the person who is allowed to do it.
The exhibition remains there for a month and tells its little stories to thousands of passers-by. About life when it is tough. And then, maybe not. About taboos being broken down. Because something has been said aloud.
And once again, the story is about being human.
This time in pictures. Without the living word. Away from the lecture hall.
Hang a camera around your neck and allow yourself to simply step into it. Into the myriad of stories about being human. “The living word. LIVE”.