Geophotographer – Andrea Gjestvang

Photojournalist Andrea Gjestvang documents the ‘atlantic cowboy’, men on the Faroe Islands where there is a shortage of women

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I’m fascinated by the Nordic region and the peripheries, because that’s where I feel at home.’ Norwegian photographer Andrea Gjestvang has spent more than a decade delving into and documenting the social fabric of her region of origin. ‘I started when I was a teenager, in a very classic way – I got the old analogue camera from my grandmother and I made a darkroom at home on the farm where I grew up, and I started to photograph my surroundings.’

She went on to study photojournalism. ‘I was very engaged in social topics, but I was also a bit shy,’ she says. Her work since graduating has been impressively diverse, ranging from portraits of the survivors of the 22 July terror attack in Norway to the impact of climate change on communities in Greenland. Her most recent project, Atlantic Cowboy, documents the impact of the shortage of women in the Faroe Islands through a depiction of the ‘traditional man’ – the Atlantic cowboy – and the peripheral world, both geographical and social, that he inhabits.

‘In 2014, I heard about the lack of women on the Faroe Islands,’ Gjestvang explains. ‘It made me really curious and also surprised. The Nordic countries are known for being on the front line when it comes to gender equality, so I wondered – why do women want to leave? Being curious and surprised is a good starting point for a project, so I decided to go there and see how it was and see if the story connected with me.’ 

She ended up working on the project for six years, visiting the islands twice a year or more and staying for up to six weeks at a time, ‘just driving around and being a bit lost, seeing what I could find. I love travelling around in the Faroe Islands,’ she says. ‘It’s such a special experience because the landscape is so overwhelming and I enjoy engaging with the people there and getting to learn more about them.

‘It’s also very uncomfortable,’ she continues, ‘because I force myself to jump out of the car to talk with strangers, which isn’t something that I find very easy. It’s always this contrast between loving it, because I really love to photograph, and then being frustrated and nervous about it. And then of course, I go home and I look at my photos and I immediately forget about all the difficult feelings and I just want to return.’ 

www.andreagjestvang.com