“Part Two–Amor omnia vincit

“Love conquers all, as a working hypothesis, or the innermost core of pain.”

—P.O Enquist, The book about Blanche and Marie

For Nadja Bournonville, the photographs of “Amor omnia vincit” have become a series of questions rather then answers, like stories left wide open. They question both the personal and universal experience of love—the distance between need and desire, the restless hunt for intimacy, and our hope to be truly known by the other; and, on the other hand, the vertigo—the fear of falling, being left and rejected.

After reading P.O. Enquist’s “The book about Blanche and Marie,” Bournonville decided to divide her project into three parts inspired by the question books written by the main character, Blanche. Each page of these books is said to start with a question and it is through her sometimes erratic answers that a story gradually unfolds. In Part One, “One for every wish,” I was occupied with the question I applied as a child to every situation, why? The curiosity and playfulness of this question drove my search forward through continuous reading, questioning and image making. Part two has developed similarly, where the scenes built up within the images act as spaces for thoughts and ideas regarding the impossible possibility of love. (Bournonville, 2009) This will be the first exhibition of Bournonville’s photographs in the United States.