Line Løkken’s Circular Exercises is a playful and experimental photo book, testing the boundaries of the photographic image. From spread to spread, we are led through the book via a series of circles: we move between small, overseen objects from everyday life to the incomprehensible spectacle of the universe. Taking the viewer into the close and familiar, but also outward, into the infinite, Circular Exercises emphasizes the performative aspect of reading images in a book. Through associations to forms we recognize at the edge of our consciousness, and visual observations we are certain of, we are invited into a heightened gaze of the world.
Within the world of Circular Exercises, we find terrain that we know, or rather that we trust that someone knows. A backyard with the last snow, a few bicycles — this could make sense. But we are then confronted by things, reduced to textures that just can’t be so easily described. And this is where the mystery of the project lies — somehow you don’t really mind. In another photo book this would be called getting lost. But by the time you reach an image of the Earth, it’s all perfectly natural. It’s just another circle.
Circular Exercises is a formally rich photo book, with black and white photographs that function primarily via formal logic. Balanced by full spreads, and a mood of generosity, the book becomes a portal into a realm of texture, timelessness. It is an optimistic reminder that the world is mysterious — a reminder that does not fade in significance with repeated viewings.
