Free Choice / Conceptual Photography | Nominee

Laerke Posselt

Copenhagen/Denmark www.laerkeposselt.com

Yrkingar

Concept

Yrkingar is a diaristic photo essay portraying the Faroe Islands, whose existence is threatened: the women are disappearing. Situated between the Norwegian Sea and the North Atlantic Ocean, the Faroe Islands have always been an isolated society living on approximately 540 square miles of volcanic remains.

Religion, tradition and the big forces of nature are the main factors in the lives of the around 50,000 inhabitants. But with the Internet and globalisation, the youth is suddenly connected to the rest of the world, and they don't all want to be fishermen any more. So they travel abroad for their education. Some of the men come back, but the women rarely do.

Now the islands house 13 per cent fewer women than men, and the number is increasing and threatening the existence of the country. In a few generations, every fifth Faroese will be gone.

Yrkingar is the Faroese word for poems.