Radius 500 Metres
by Terje Abusdal
Published by Journal, Stockholm, 2015
15 x 21 cm. 96 pages. 71 color images. English and Norwegian.
Text by Terje Abusdal.
ISBN 978-91-87939-12-9
First Edition, 600 copies.
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Radius 500 Metres is a photobook made from the archives of Åsmund Abusdal, told by his grandson Terje Abusdal. Portrayed through a series of personal photos from the Setesdal Valley, the book offers glimpses of everyday life in rural Norway in the 1970s and 80s. A time before wealth of the oil industry transformed the country and way of life forever. In that way, Radius 500 Metres is a visual testimony from a period that marked the end for the post-war social democratic welfare model and the shift to neoliberalism.
Åsmund Abusdal was a self-proclaimed journalist and photographer. Many of the pictures, accompanied by stories he wrote, were published in the local newspaper, Setesdølen. The photographs are spontaneous – wonderful examples of the snapshot-aesthetics that had its golden age around the same time these were taken. They are unintended historical documents and Norwegian contributions to a glorious era of colour photography.
Selected for The Photobook Exhibition, Athens Photo Festival 2016, Greece.
Selected for the exhibition Have Book will Travel, Fotofestiwal 2016, Poland.
Selected in Photo-eye's annual survey Best Books 2015:
"For several generations, Terje Abusdal’s family has owned and run a small gas station-cum-café in the Setesdal valley of southern Norway. In Radius 500 Metres, Absudal presents a stunning collection of snapshots taken in and around the station by his grandfather — who inherited the business in the 1970s, and was also a keen photographer and contributor to the local newspaper. The book offers a matter-of-fact yet deeply moving portrait of a close-knit, rural community in mid-twentieth century Norway, before the country’s oil boom and subsequent wealth, and documents a family business’s modest yet vital role within it in the most endearing of ways."
Aaron Schuman