Vanni Jung Ståhle

Jitterbug at Folkets hus, endless cruising in hot rods, and limousine rides to the local sports bar. But also family life and strong relationships. In Kungarna från Blomstermåla, photographer Vanni Jung Ståhle combines humor and a serious approach to depict life for those who stayed in her childhood village while many others chose to leave. “Many think that nothing happens in a village like Blomstermåla. But everything happens there,” says Vanni Jung Ståhle. The exhibition The Kings from Blomstermåla opens at Fotografiska Stockholm on February 21, 2025.

The exhibition is a part of Fotografiska Stockholm’s Emerging Artists series, a platform for young, promising photographers based in Sweden who use unique imagery to show us their everyday lives. The goal with the series is to highlight rising artists and to support and inspire a local art scene.

How does growing up in a village of just over 2000 people form you? And what decisions do you make as an adult: do you leave or do you remain? The photographer Vanni Jung Ståhle describes it as a crossroad everyone in her childhood village of Blomstermåla faced after high school. While she chose to leave to study photography outside of Stockholm, many of her childhood friends chose to stay. Four years ago, she returned to document the lives in the Småland village and nearby villages – a project now resulting in the exhibition The Kings from Blomstermåla.

“I wanted to understand how their lives differed from mine and explore an alternative reality – what my life might have been like if I had stayed. All of these meetings and the resulting photographs offered me a way back in. Now I want to show where I come from in an artistic context.”

Ståhle’s documentation tells the story of everything from rebellion and sorrow to weddings and family life. But also jitterbug at Folkets hus, endless cruising along the streets in hot rods, and “the kings of Blomstermåla”, the ones who take limousines to the local sports bar.

“Many think that nothing happens in a village like Blomstermåla. But everything happens there. The relationships are incredibly strong and ever more crucial in such a small village, where your entire world is composed of these people, those you have known and have lived with your entire life,” says Ståhle. “This project could be described as a kind of ethnographic documentation of Blomstermåla, but, for me, it is above all a reflection of my identity and my background.”

“In a time when urbanization and migration to large cities dominates the discussion, it is important to also highlight those who stayed behind. This exhibition depicts the choices that form life, community, and identity, narratives that are often overshadowed in contemporary photography,” says Mohamed Mire, exhibition producer at Fotografiska Stockholm.

The Kings from Blomstermåla will run from February 21 to June 8, 2025.