The photographs for the first exhibition in the project primarily focus on horses eating. If you look at representations of horses through history there seem to be very few representations of horses eating, very few. This is maybe a little paradoxical as horses are considered to spend most of their life eating, 16-18 hours a day moving together in a group, given the chance and choice. Horses do not have the same day - night rhythm as humans as they also eat for several hours during the night. They are considered to sleep for 4-5 hours during 24 hours, mostly standing, divided into several shorter sleep and rest sessions, often collectively as group, spread out during the day as well as the night. Given the chance and choice it would seem they don’t do much else but eat and sleep collectively, even during the night, and I would argue that this is not represented in our visual culture, and one may wonder why it is so rare to represent horses eating. I have often been told that pictures of horses eating are boring, so I decided that I would attempt to make images of horses eating really interesting, seeing as its seems to be the heart and soul of their activities, and it has so far not been included in the 30 000 year history of representing the horse.
To focus on horses eating is to also focus on their faces and expressions, as I see it. This is rarely done if you look at the greater range of equine representation and it has been my motivation to focus on these unusual aspects, eating and facial expressions. I have earlier worked on documenting facial expressions of horses performing in sports.
I have chosen to call this visual project a herbarium. A herbarium could loosely be interpreted to be a collection of plants. Traditionally plants would be collected, pressed and mounted on sheets of paper, with name, place and date found. Today digital versions may be called herbariums. Horses can of course not make their own herbariums, as humans can. Humans define horses predominantly as grass eaters, and it is as such our interpretation and understanding of them, in the absence of them defining themselves. The title is intended to draw attention to this imbalance. When you find lists of plants in relation to equines it may seem more likely to be lists of what they must not eat, rather than what they may eat. What may be poisonous to horses is of course very important. If you look for lists showing the great diversity of what horses may eat it, is considerably harder to find, and for that matter lists of other uses horses may have of plants.
Horses Herbarium is not intended as a list over edible plants for horses, for such a task I do not have the authority. Nor is it a list over poisonous plants, as there are many of these, though often not in agreement. There are many books, and even apps today, that may help the curious in identifying plants, so there is no need for me to take on that task. The herbarium is not intended as a presentation of the optimal life for horses, as this is hard to know and verify. What it is, however, is a photographic project with a collection of photos documenting a group of horses in relation to each other and to a diverse range of plants, given their limited living environment. The attempt is to document their relationship to plants, through forageing, explorations, eating, smelling, scratching and also their need for shelter.
With Horses Herbarium I attempt create a greater visibility in representation of horses, eating and otherwise relating to plants, including their facial expressions, thus bringing to attention something which is rather unusual and less visible in our culture. Horses must be the most represented animal in our visual culture at large, second only to the human animal itself. In this equine culture we see a lot of horses with their mouths open, an expression most often due to a bit in their mouth, and not because they are eating. In fact one might say that most equine images could be more accurately described as equestrian images, making them into what we want them to be, and not what they are in reality. I cannot claim to photograph them as they really are, but the task motivates me. Looking at the equine in visual culture, I think we see quite clearly what we want horses to be, visual history is a testimony to the priority of that wish. But, given the chance, who would they choose to be?