JONATHAN CHERRY: What got you started with photography?

ALEXANDER JULIN: I began to shoot when I was around 14. At that time, I tried to use photography as a tool to recreate all the feelings I couldn’t describe with words. I’m not sure if it worked out at any point, but I got hooked on photography either way.

JC: Any emerging artists inspiring you at the moment?

AJ: Aside from a lot of older or “classical” film-photographers, I’m really into Niall O’Brien’s photography. I love the way he manages to portray these punks as so much more than just stereotypicic teenagers. His portraits and series seems much more nuanced to me, describing the feelings of restlessness and burning from the inside. I just got introduced to Mustafah Abdulaziz’ photography the other day. I guess that his project “Memory Loss” might be my favourite at the moment. Good friend Lasse Dearman has just made a series about the life of Glasgow called “Nothing is lost, I’ve got it”, which is truly worth a view.

Other honorable mentions could be Sandy Kim or Sofie Amalie Klougart.

JC: Whats your current project all about?

AJ: I’m just trying to gather as many ideas and impressions as possible at the moment. I’ve mostly shot live photography the last weeks to manifest some wicked events that my friends either put up or played at themselves. The thing I like about shooting live music, is that every good liveband even has an exploding energy or expression to involve their audience in or the abillity to create an extraordinary intimicy. And I think “initimacy” is an important keywords when it comes to my view on interesting photography.

JC: Where are you currently living and how is it shaping you?

AJ: I moved to Gellerup, Aarhus in Denmark last year, which is sort of like a ghetto. It’s this really weird area of flats, mainly occupied by immigrants, since the rent is so cheap and the chances of getting a high paying job isn’t always the best - especially if you got a hard time “just” trying to immigrate in a new culture. The area got this feeling of being just about to explode, since that even though that everything is calm and still in the hundreds of tightly compressed flats, I still meet kids on the street, which indeed have suffered under the conditions of a very burgeouis approach on integration. All this have resulted in various assaults, robberies, etc. mainly just by bunches of kids, lost in the world.

Living in Gellerup has definitely taught me a lot about the racism of the Danish state and how easily violence begets violence. It’s shaping my way of seeing the world and how I’d like to show it myself somehow.

JC: Any big plans for 2012?

AJ: I’m planning on taking a trip to London during the holidays and join a friend who’s currently squatting there. I’d really like to potray this more or less anti-material way of life.