Los Angeles made me less interested in making my images move. Everything is evolving and regressing. It can be hard to pinpoint which changes are linked to place. I believe California has made me more polite. I get a little surprised when I rediscover how direct and rude Norwegians can be.

Initially I borrowed the word “perverse” from Roland Barthes, meaning pleasure-driven and not geared to inform or promote a service or a product. An unproductive photograph designed to keep you in the process of looking is of course something larger than an expression of aberrant sexuality.

I'd like the photographs to potentially be meaningful to a wide range of people. They do not grow out of the reportage mode, this was always clear to me. Personal imaginations blend into each other and create our visual cultures. No one is a neutral observer of this field.

Initially I borrowed the word "perverse" for my works from Roland Barthes, meaning pleasure-driven and not geared to inform or promote a service or a product.

I am fascinated by how images and motifs move between and adjust to different cultures. I'm a Norwegian living in Los Angeles showing a photograph inspired by Japanese image culture in an American beach town named after a sinking city in Italy.

I often have to feel my way through the alternatives. The 99-cent store is attractive because it offers objects that aren't promoted in glossy magazines. The work then becomes a form of alchemy.

I like to put a single photograph in different contexts, to see how it takes on other meanings, how being locked in a new dialogue exposes another potential. It's like dating other people in order to get to know yourself.