Svala’s Saga (in collaboration with Emma Powell) (2013-2017)

From the beginning, Svala was the guardian of the birds. But on a cold, gray day, she no longer heard them. They all had disappeared. She searched throughout the land, but only broken shells and empty nests remained.  As winters and summers passed, Svala consulted oracles and interpreted dreams. The message was always the same: it was her destiny to rescue the birds. She bid farewell to home and hearth, then set out across the world on her quest. 

Svala’s Saga is a photographic fairy tale about the journey of a single character and the world she inhabits.  As told through fifty interrelated photographs, our strong female heroine, Svala, is confronted with the sudden loss of the world’s birds. She then embarks on a mythic quest: as the Earth heats and cools, she journeys through the wilderness searching for the last remaining eggs. Svala’s Saga harnesses the power of fiction to explore topics such as climate change and species extinction.

The landscape of Iceland is an active character in the narrative. Svala interacts dramatically with a variety of visually astonishing rock formations, steam vents, glaciers, and geysers. In this realm of environmental extremes, Svala’s story abounds with magic and metaphor.

Svala’s Saga is printed using the historic palladium process coated over a digital/pigment under-print, a process that has been called “Pigment over Palladium.” This hybrid technique evokes hand-colored photographs or painted illustrations, reinforcing the combination of fantasy and photography.

To see the full series, visit https://www.emmapowell.photo/svalasaga