KONSNÄCKAN / CONIDAE (Self Published, 2023)
Photography
Edition: 400 copies
Design: Patric Leo
Conidae, commonly known as the cone snail, is a family of sea snails comprising a number of different genera. The shells of the snails vary in appearance. Some are adorned with mosaic patterns or wavy lines in ochre and orange. Others are pale pink, dotted, light green or violet. The beautiful patterns of the shells have made them very popular among collectors. What few people know, however, is that the cone snail is one of the most dangerous predators of the tropical coral reefs. Their venom is a complex mixture of hundreds of different toxins. Some can be life- threatening to humans, or cause respiratory failure, paralysis and visual disturbances. The most dangerous species, Conus geographus, lives in the Indian Ocean and has caused the deaths of many people.
The characteristic features and behaviours of this animal can also be seen in some people. A relationship with such an individual can be devastating and take a long time to heal from.
QAANAAQ – RÖSTER FRÅN EN BY (Verbal publishing, 2022)
Photography / journalism
Edition: 600 copies
Design: Patric Leo
In the small village of Qaanaaq in Greenland, generations have subsisted on hunting but are now finding it increasingly difficult to do so. Catch quotas are decreasing and glaciers are melting. In many places it is no longer possible to get there with dog sleds due to the increasingly weak ice. Meet five generations who which gives an insight into their lives.This is a book about the life then and now from one of the world's northernmost settlements.
DET BOR EN FÅGEL I MITT ÖRA (Ekström & Garay, 2021)
Poetry
Edition: 100 copies
Design: Anders Wieslander
What does it mean to be human? What is normality? Is the feeling of exclusion a healthy questioning of norms, or is it a sign of weakness; not being able to integrate into society with its expectations? Is the opposite attitude, to conform to norms an expression of strength or abandonment? Are the different states rooted in the same need, to feel meaning and belonging?
Det bor en fågel i mitt öra, raises questions about how we as humans relate to life in different ways.
IN A WOMAN'S WORLD (Verbal publishing, 2021)
Photography / journalism
Edition: 800 copies
Design: Patric Leo
All over the world, women's freedom is restricted. Education, sexual violence, war and climate change are some of the areas where women are especially affected.
Photographer Martina Holmberg and journalist Maria Hagström have collected several years of work from eleven different countries and show what it can be like to live "In a WoMAN's world". A world where there is also hope for change and freedom.
VÄSEN (Self Published, 2021)
Photography
Limited Edition: The book is special bound and printed in 200 copies.
Editing & design: Martina Holmberg & Patric Leo
Väsen is a small book with poetic contemplations of human existence in different everyday situations. The pictures are black and white and photographed over a five-year period.
MAYFLY (Self Published, 2020)
Photography
Limited Edition: The book is special bound and printed in 500 numbered copies.
Editing & design: Martina Holmberg & Theodor Jikander
"In 2012, Martina Holmberg’s book and exhibition Fade to Black put a poetic tone to an old Polaroid technique gone awry during production.
(...The photographs in this book, Mayfly, are of course an equally beautiful continuation of this theme. The aura of the images returns as a key component. The emulsion flaws and the subdued color tones veering toward red characterize many of them. Our reading of them shifts to a recognition of those family photo albums from the 1950s and 60s that we all know and love – those albums that are slowly, in declining color scales, evaporating from so many homes all over the globe. The images thus also become apt metaphors for how our own human memories, sooner or later, to a greater or lesser degree, fade or change."
/ Stefan Nilson - Photography and art critic, culture writer
HANSEMAN (Lux Publishing 2016)
Photography / lyrics
Limited Edition: The book is special bound and printed in 100 numbered copies.
Editing & design: Theodor Jikander (LUX) www.luxuniverse.net
I got the idea to make this book after my father became seriously ill and was hospitalized for weeks hovering between life and dead. When he became better I started to document him partly becuse I wanted to preserve the memorys of him in pictures, but the most important for me was to give him the book as a declaration of my love. To make the book was also important cause I had to process my feelings about life and death.
FADE TO BLACK (Lux Publishing 2012)
Limited Edition: The book is special bound and printed in 500 numbered copies.
Editing & design: Theodor Jikander (LUX) www.luxuniverse.net
"A mistake late in the production of the soon to be closed factory results in a batch of Polaroid film with strange and unexpected characteristics. The small batch is saved from destruction by someone who understands the interesting nature of the mistake and properties of the film.
The photographer Martina Holmberg gets hold of a pack and falls in love with the films unpredictable and chaotic expression. She buys as much of it as remains to be bought and with it she creates a painterly and atmospheric world of brief moments. Her work culminates in an exhibition and monograph uncommon in Swedish photography."
/ Excerpt from Adlibris
