Vintervegen
Juul Van Wesemael
Dendermonde
About
I’m a documentary photographer drawn to small, contained stories and fascinated by traditions and folklore that continue to exist within an increasingly modern world. I often work by immersing myself in the stories I photograph, letting my experience shape the way I look and move through them. My images come from trying to understand a place from within, filtering it through my own way of seeing rather than observing it from the outside.
Project
During earlier travels through Dalarna, I had the feeling that I was moving through an isolated landscape. After discovering the traditional winter journeys to Røros, I accompanied the Dalarna Femund Förkörarförening on their annual journey through the Scandinavian winter landscape. The journey unfolds in repetition and rhythm, at a steady pace across snow-covered terrain, surrounded by the sound of jingling bells. Instead of a story moving through the landscape, the landscape moves around the journey itself. What grows in the meantime is a sense of connection between people, animals, and the land. As if everything is temporarily held together by movement.
