Peder Björkegren is the Stockholm photographer who returned with his camera to the landscape of his childhood in southern Sweden. In about ten individual exhibitions, Peder has depicted a calm Österlen, devoid of people, shrouded in an apparently eternal lyrical light. On early-morning walks and in bad weather, he takes us through the unpredictable changes in the natural landscape. An example of this is the book Utflykter från Österlen (“Excursions from Österlen”), published in 1997, in which he shows the greatness in everyday and modest subjects. It is a personal approach that led to his exhibitions, such as “Black-and-white vegetables,” “Bathing,” and his most recent collection, “Tools.” The “Tools” exhibition originated on a winter’s day nearly twenty years ago, when he was meandering among broken engine parts, sheet metal and iron pipes at the local scrap merchant’s yard outside Borrby, in Österlen. On the ground, next to a corrugated metal shed, a rusty piece of iron with strange shapes was sticking up. “At home, I placed this odd piece in a table and we stared at one another for six months – the piece of iron and me. I later understood that it found me and not the other way round,” Peder says with a smile. “A farmer came by and explained that it was a turnip pick. A forgotten tool that was used a long time ago for harvesting turnips. The round shape was used as a knife blade to cut off the top when the turnip was still in the ground. The turnip was then pulled up using the two pointed iron teeth.” Peder was struck by the cooperation between the farmer’s need for tools and the smith’s skill in using his hammer to turn the iron into an excellent shape. Function and beauty in natural harmony; heart and mind. “Later that day, I hung the turnip pick on a wall and took a photograph. In front of the camera, the tool became mysterious signs, telling tales of hard work, but also of a love of the land from a time that will not return. I have continued to look for my tools and today I have nearly a hundred,” says Peder. Exhibitions More than 20 one-man-exhibitions and 45 group exhibitions in Sweden, Italy and China since 1964. Books "Utflykter på Österlen" CV