The Embedded series began as an examination of the relationship between the natural world and the cultural world. Like the title implies, it’s about a feeling of security, about being enclosed and protected. But there’s an ambiguity to this condition, it could also be understood as a kind of confinement, of being isolated and enclosed.

The men in the “Embedded” images and the video triptych of the same name move slowly, like icebergs floating on the horizon. They are half awake, half asleep, moving between the natural and cultural worlds, embodying a natural culture or a cultured nature. Moving like slow-motion waterfalls, polar bears on glaciers, seals under water, they are on their way, but where to? The men are part of a constant flow, they come from all parts of the world, a world where everyone is both unique and replaceable.

The images are about natural beauty, but also about the way the world is slowly collapsing. They are about knowledge and power, about the impossibility of seeing the big picture, in your private life as well as the world at large. In contemporary society, information itself is embedded – it is simultaneously out in the open and hidden away, a Trojan horse wrapped around itself.

/Maria Friberg