“All photographs are memento mori. To take a photograph is to participate in another person’s (or thing’s) mortality, vulnerability, mutability. Precisely by slicing out this moment and freezing it, all photographs testify to time’s relentless melt.”
― Susan Sontag
Photography has long been understood as an attempt to halt the flow of time. It appears to immortalize a situation, a person, a memory — to hold something in place that would otherwise vanish. Yet this promise is inherently paradoxical. As Susan Sontag reminds us, every photograph is simultaneously a presence and a proof of loss: “All photographs are memento mori.” The moment the shutter clicks, the moment itself is already gone.
This fundamental contradiction lies at the heart of the medium. The tension between the desire to remember and the impossibility of truly keeping what has passed. The photograph becomes a site where presence and absence meet — where what exists and what no longer exists briefly touch. In this encounter lies a subtle form of continuity, not a triumph over impermanence but a quiet space in which the fleeting becomes momentarily perceptible again.
Ingenting vi elsker er ment å vare ( Nothing We Love Is Meant to Last ) by
@knutaaserud is a retrospective journey through twenty-five years of work, everyday life, relationships, longings, and dreams.
Knut Åserud (b. 1978, Bergen) is a photographer based in Tromsø. With a background in portrait photography and an intermediate degree in art history from the University of Bergen, his practice bridges technical craft and visual cultural insight. Since 2023, Åserud has focused primarily on commercial creative photography, working within the music industry, performing arts, and advertising. He has collaborated with a wide range of prominent Norwegian artists, including Madrugada, Aurora, Ida Maria, Datarock, Karpe, and Daniel Herskedal. This exhibition is curated by Jet Pascua and supported by the Troms Fylkeskommune and the Norske Reindriftsamers Landsforbundet.
