Reykjavík Grapevine - 06.10.2017, Page 60

A Notorious Murder
Case Seen Through
The Lens
Sugar Paper Theories features the infamous
Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case
Words: Jenna Mohammed Photos: Art Bicnick
Iceland’s biggest and most con-
troversial murder investigation in
brought back to life in the exhibit
Sugar Paper Theories. British pho-
tographer Jack Latham uses the
Guðmundur and Geirfinnur case
as a platform to explore the differ-
ent ways we interpret images.
The famous case, which cent-
ers around a disappearance, has
recently been taken back to court
and is also the subject of the new
documentary ‘Out Of Thin Air.’
T he i ncident occ u rred i n
the mid ‘70s, when Guðmun-
dur Einarsson went missing in
Hafnarfjörður. Ten months later,
Geirfinnur Einarsson—who is
not related to Guðmundur—never
returned to his car which he had
parked in Keflavík. In the follow-
ing investigations, six people con-
fessed to crimes they could not re-
call, making the case truly iconic.
Land of stories
Sugar Paper Theories looks at pho-
tographs as contextual evidence
and plays with how they reveal our
perception of memory, truth and
ambiguity. Jack Latham gravitated
to this case for various reasons.
“In particular, Iceland has a con-
nection with the idea of storytell-
ing," he says. "There’s a long his-
tory of storytelling within Iceland,
and the setting is a really interest-
ing place. I believe it's one of the
largest injustices in Europe. Really
when you break down what hap-
pened in this case, it’s a form of
storytelling.”
Photography is just another
way of portraying an event, but
the question of what is tangible
remains. “I was initially inter-
ested in this case because I believe
it's linked well with photography,”
says Jack. “It’s the idea of misdi-
rection and misinformation. We
live in a time where fake news is
now vernacular. As a photogra-
pher I create bodies of work and I
take photos seemingly out of con-
text and I put them in a different
context to generate a narrative.”
Sugar Paper Theories delves into
this theme; the recreated photo-
graphs used for the trial are com-
parable to a conjured story, unable
to define what really occurred.
Jack explains, “As much as it’s an
investigation into the case, it’s
also simultaneously an investiga-
tion into the medium of photogra-
phy, storytelling, and how we view
images.”
Fact versus fiction
Sugar Paper Theories keeps in
mind the question of what hap-
pens when photographic evidence
is used to convict people. Jack
believes images represent truth
while they simultaneously present
fiction. “There is an idea of fram-
ing and photographer bias—they
decide what’s going to be in that
frame,” he says. “There is inherent
staging to every photograph and
they aren’t always what they seem.
In the case with reenactment pho-
tos, there is the element of stag-
ing where people stand in certain
places or reenact certain bits.
What does that mean about the
term ‘evidence’ or ‘document?'”
Jack contends that social media
platforms such as Facebook and
Instagram have elements of dis-
tress within them. He compares it
to a parody of family photos. “You
will only put positive pictures of
yourself or what you deem worthy
to be online," he says. "This refer-
ences a family album. When you
go through it there are never the
bits of people crying or of funerals.
You curate a narrative of yourself
and I think photography does this
so well and I don’t think many peo-
ple realise the implication of that.
That’s what always interested
me—how we curate stories about
our lives and ourselves.”
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60 The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 18 — 2017
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