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Riitta Ikonen: Meet our friend Bob.

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We met on a wintery night

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in the company of the members
of the New York Indoor Gardening Society.

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And one of the regulars
was this charismatic gentleman

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studying the wonders
of carnivorous plants.

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We were there

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looking for collaborators
for an art project

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looking at modern humans'
belonging to nature.

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Karoline Hjorth: We couldn't resist
slipping a little note in Bob's pocket

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to say we'd love to hear from him.

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And the next day, he called us
and excitedly proclaimed how,

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"This is not a time in my life
when I want to lay around in bed."

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And the next week,

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we were all sitting on a J train
to Forest Park in Queens.

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RI: Bob has worked for decades

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in New York's fashion
photography industry,

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and he had to be replaced by three people

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when he eventually chose
to move on to new adventures.

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Bob agreed to collaborate with us

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on the condition that we wouldn't
mess with the style

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that he had taken many decades to perfect.

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So we promised to do just that,

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and only added a few pine needles.

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You might be wondering

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why the two of us were trimming
Bob's pine needle beret in the park

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in the first place.

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We met a few years prior,

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when I was investigating on the internet,

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looking for a collaborator
for an art project

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looking at modern humans'
relationship to nature.

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So I do what people do,

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I go to Google and I type in three words:

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"Norway,"

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"grannies" and "photographer."

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And I click on the number one
search result,

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which was Karoline Hjorth here.

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(Laughter)

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KH: I had just put out a book
about Norwegian grandmothers.

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And initially, we teamed up

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to look at how natural phenomena
were explained through human form.

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And we started investigating folktales

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in a small coastal city in Norway.

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RI: We reasoned that the older
the local interviewee,

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the closer we would be
to these talking rocks of these stories.

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KH: Agnes, for example,
is Norway's oldest parachuting granny.

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Her latest jump was at 91.

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And this portrait is an homage
to the fabled north wind

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often featured in Nordic folk tales.

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We met another fabled character
called Lyktemann,

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on a bog just outside of Oslo.

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Lyktemann's presence as mysterious lights
has been recorded for centuries

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in many different cultures
under as many different names,

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like Joan the Wad, will-o'-the-wisp

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or the man of the lantern.

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The contemporary view

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or the contemporary
explanation to these lights

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is that they are the product
of ignited marsh gas.

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The more adventurous view

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is that a character appears
when the fog hangs low,

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and there are unwary travelers about
who have lost their path.

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RI: He is known for being
quite a mischievous character,

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never quite revealing the true nature
of his intentions.

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KH: And as Bengt is an expert
in astronavigation,

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an ex-submarine captain

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and the previous chief mate
on board the tall ship Christian Radich,

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Bengt was the perfect
personification of Lyktemann.

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RI: In our initial quest

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of looking into the contemporary
role of folklore,

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we were quickly pooh-poohed

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for looking into something seen
as childish children's bedtime stories.

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Even saying the word "folklore"
got people looking really puzzled.

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KH: And it wasn't just the accent.

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(Laughter)

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RI: We even had an eighth-generation
local potter state

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that people from this region

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have come up with some
of this nation's best inventions,

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and they don't have time to turn rocks
and wonder what is under.

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This rejection was exactly what we needed

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to keep poking further into this subject.

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(Laughter)

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KH: We continued to interview people

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about their relationship
with their surroundings

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and started wondering

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what's happening
with people's imagination.

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Can our relationship to nature
really be explained so pragmatically,

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so entirely boringly,

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so that a rock is just
a good old straightforward rock,

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and a lake is just a basic wet place,

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entirely separate from us?

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Can our surroundings really be explained
to such a dull degree of rationality?

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RI: The name of our project,
"Eyes as Big as Plates,"

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is borrowed from a folk tale.

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And there's one with a dog
that's living beneath a bridge

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and another version,

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where there is a troll
doing the same thing.

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And this open-eyed
and potentially risky approach

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to seeing the world around you

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has become an emblem of the curiosity
that guides our interactions.

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KH: Serendipity is our project manager.

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And ideally, we meet our collaborators
through random chance.

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In the opposite lane in the swimming pool,

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at the choir practice,

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in a noodle bar

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or in a Senegalese fishing harbor,

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as you do.

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Each image starts with a conversation,

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much like a casual interview.

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RI: And we never call
these collaborators "models,"

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as there are three authors to each image,

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all equally crucial
to the realization of their portrait.

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There is no age limit,

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absolutely anybody
with an interesting lived life

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is more than qualified to join.

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KH: This is Boubou.

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His son-in-law happened to be
in this harbor

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when we came looking for locations.

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And one impromptu house visit
and fish market shopping spree later,

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Boubou and his family
all waded in a low tide with us.

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RI: A wearable sculpture is born
from the conversation

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with each collaborator

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and is made from materials
found in the surroundings.

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About one third of Senegal's arable land
is devoted to millet,

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an incredibly itchy-to-wear,

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nutritious and hardy staple
with deep cultural roots.

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This is Mane,

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one of the grand grandmothers
of the Ndos village,

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a tornado of vigor and energy.

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And she applauded to our invitation

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to portray her in her personal
favorite crop,

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with which she works every day.

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KH: It's important
that participation is voluntary.

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(Laughter)

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If you have doubts in the beginning,

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you will definitely regret it

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by the time Riitta is stuffing
cold, wet bull kelp up your nose.

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(Laughter)

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Working with an analog camera
means the process can be slow

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and physically challenging.

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The person in front of the camera

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might be kneeling for three hours
in a freezing sleet,

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be bombarded by mosquitoes

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or actually, they can also be allergic

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to the local flora
they've just been coated in.

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RI: And many other things.

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(Laughter)

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And then, there's,
of course, the elements.

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Unpredictability
is one of the main drivers

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that keeps this process interesting.

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For example, in Iceland,

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we were in operation mode,
shooting for two weeks,

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without knowing that the camera
was not functioning properly.

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Ooh, right?

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KH: And because we work
with analog cameras

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with actual film rolls,

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the excitement
from the shoots keeps giving

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until we pick up
the negatives from the lab.

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RI: Luckily, Edda, pictured here,

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was one of the few that was captured
on film in Iceland.

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Pictured here amid bubbling,
steaming hot springs

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between two tectonic plates.

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Supposedly, there are these little
hot spring birds

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that dive into these bubbles,

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and according to the legend,

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these little birds represent
the souls of the dead.

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We have the honor

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of working with some of the toughest
and bravest and coolest people around,

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and thoroughly enjoy

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how some of our works and portraits
stomp on stereotypes about age,

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gender and nationality.

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KH: To us, much of Western society
is unnecessarily confused

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when it comes to the usefulness

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of this absolutely
rock-and-roll demographic.

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(Laughter)

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RI: Attitude, life experience and stamina
are some of the main traits

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we have found amongst
all our collaborators,

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as well as a formidable curiosity
for new experiences.

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KH: We have noticed
how the solitary figures in our images

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are increasingly viewed as representations
of the age of loneliness,

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known as the Eremocene.

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RI: We are trying to encourage

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a new way of participating in
and communicating with our surroundings.

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KH: There is the assumption

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that humans have created
a new geological epoch,

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and we need to learn how to see
what our role is in it.

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RI: We'll be working with farmers,

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cosmologists, geo-ecologists,

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ethnomusicologists and marine biologists

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to see how art can change
the way we think, act and live.

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KH: It's not clear who or what
is the protagonist in our work,

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whether it's the human figure
or the nature around them,

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and we like it that way.

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Ten years and 15 countries
into the project,

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we are not sure how, if,
or when this project will end.

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RI: We have vowed to continue
as long as it's fun,

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and we'll keep making new images
and more books that explore --

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KH: How to balance life amongst
the effects of the climate crisis.

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The writer Roy Scranton
beautifully summarized

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how our project can be approached.

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"We need to learn to see,

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not just with Western eyes

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but with Islamic eyes and Inuit eyes,

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not just with human eyes
but with golden-cheeked warbler eyes,

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coho salmon eyes

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and polar bear eyes,

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and not even just with eyes at all,

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but with the wild, barely articulate
being of clouds and seas

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and seas and rocks and trees and stars."

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RI: Perhaps if we start seeing ourselves
through coho salmon eyes,

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we might begin to synchronize better
with our fellow flora, fauna and funga.

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To do this requires
both imagination and empathy.

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And curiosity is at the root of both.

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KH: As Halvar, one of our first
collaborators, said nearly 10 years ago,

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"If you stop being curious,

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you might as well be dead."

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(Both) Thank you.

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(Laughter)

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(Applause)