The series Stranger in Motherland presents photographs taken in central Brazil between 1999 and 2013. By seeking out her grandmother, aunties, and cousins on her mother’s side, artist Maya Økland plots a depiction of identity and belonging across cultures.
Growing up in Varberg, Sweden with a Norwegian/Icelandic father and a Brazilian mother, the distance has been long to the countryside of Tocantins, the Brazilian state where her mother was born. In her images, Økland examines how to embrace a nationality that you really only know through your mother. Through portraits, landscapes, and atmospheric images, Maya Økland conveys the dual feeling of familiarity and estrangement.
The familiar is anchored in what she knows best, which in this case is her camera. Through compositions and image selections, she guides the viewer into a lifetime of recurring encounters. This is considered an ongoing project.
Stranger in Motherland was published as a photo book by the Norwegian publisher Teknisk Industri in the summer of 2017. The author Pedro Carmona-Alvarez has written poems for the book, and art historian Helga Nyman has written an in-depth text about the project.
