Filmmaker Johan Renck and photographer Anders Petersen join forces in the exhibition The Left Shore, on display on the top floor. At the heart of the exhibition is a film created by Johan Renck, based on a selection of photographs by Anders Petersen. The photos are taken, among other sources, from Petersen’s early book projects. In conjunction with The Left Shore a selection of Petersen’s books, from The Art Library's collection, is exhibited in the Old Library.

Anders Petersen (born 1944) is widely regarded as one of Sweden’s foremost contemporary photographers. He studied at Christer Strömholm’s photography school from 1966 to 1968 and subsequently continued his education at the Dramatiska Institutet in Stockholm, now the Stockholm University of the Arts. A decade later, in 1978, Café Lehmitz was published—the first in a long line of acclaimed photobooks. In a documentary style, Petersen intimately portrays the people who frequented the bar Café Lehmitz in Hamburg. Adopting a similar approach, he would later turn his lens towards entirely different, more enclosed spaces, such as a prison (Fängelse, 1984), a nursing home (Rågång till kärleken, 1991), and a psychiatric institution (Ingen har sett allt, 1997)—works that together comprise the so-called Institution Trilogy. He spent extended periods immersed in these environments to draw closer to and engage with the individuals he encountered there. What emerges are captivating portrayals of everyday life—raw and unfiltered.

"I wanted to get at what is locked away. I have always been interested in it - that which lies behind those locked doors. I started with elderly care when my father died in 1986. All of these things are about personal connections." From Anders Petersen’s Darkroom (2023)

Petersen’s photographs have been featured in many exhibitions. One such exhibition, a travelling retrospective launched in 1997, showcased his photographs from the period 1966–1996. It prompted Petersen to revisit and reflect upon his earlier works. This process is encapsulated in the visual diary Du mich auch (2002), which includes previously unpublished images from Stockholm and Hamburg in the late 1960s. The 2024 exhibition City Diary at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg featured photographs from cities where Petersen spent time during the 2000s. The exhibition also brought together other works spanning six decades, many of them intimately depicting the wonders and woes of the human condition.

“Most important of all though is getting as close as you can.” From Anders Petersen’s Darkroom (2023)