'Do not disturb': Anja Niemi

The images continue the artist's relationship with interiors, this time hotel rooms.

“I merge myself into the interior of rooms” Niemi has said in regard to some of her earlier works. For her latest project Niemi fled briefly, abandoned her life as a Norwegian woman, mother of two, committed life partner and responsible citizen in one of the world’s safest countries.

She took a suitcase filled only with borrowed garments and her camera. At undisclosed locations she checked herself into carefully selected hotels and rooms, which through their very neutrality and lack of expectation could offer Niemi a refuge from the repetitiveness that is mundane life.

Understanding the fixed nature of hotel rooms Niemi seems to utilize both the resistance and the welcome present in the bold interiors. Indeed, in some of the photographs her characters seem to be fighting architecture itself, while in others the matching colours of clothing and interiors make Niemi seem to be in symbiosis with the rooms.

In Room 408, a lady clad in black and red uses all her strength pushing herself against two walls, in Room 81 a female contorts and suspends her body between the bed and the wall. In other photographs resistance seems to be over, a luxurious blonde in a pink dress, and a black haired lady wearing a cocktail dress, both droop off a sofa, as if being exhausted, or fulfilled - or both.