By Nina Strand

There’s an image in photographer Signe Marie Andersen's new book that’s still on my mind. It depicts a black woman dressed in a white suit. Bathed in the beautiful afternoon light, she stands in front of what looks like an open church door, waiting for something or someone to arrive. Someone who may never come.

The book is full of these ambiguous situations. Mostly, the pictures are of people, inside and outside, sitting or moving, or talking to each other in front of big, colourful murals. One of the first pictures in the book shows a woman sitting at a café table, leaning in to see what the photographer is doing. Next to her is a dog that only has eyes for her. We find the same duo on the cover of the book, making their way out of a door, heading for an unknown destination.

Andersen has said that this project, the book and exhibition at Riis in 2019, aims to convey an understanding of ‘Mass as a constant entity. Mass containing our existence, history and future, hopes and moments’, as well as our presence as temporary visitors on this planet. She always looks for situations where unmediated reality sets the stage to tell stories about our lives.

Visitors also includes pictures of normally crowded places now empty of people, such as a curved corridor with many closed doors, or a particularly memorable image taken on an abandoned platform of Brussels Central Station late at night. The words ‘Remember Everything’, written on a keyboard in another photograph seem telling as you browse through the book. Can we really take in all that happens around us in our busy, everyday lives?

Several of the pictures in Visitors were featured in Andersen's last exhibition at Riis in 2016, including the picture that gave the book its title. A guest book lies on a chair, with the text ‘Visitors’ written on it in gold letters. The title sums up the theme of the project: the people we meet in the book are – just like ourselves – only visitors in this world for a brief moment. It is good, therefore that Andersen and her camera have captured this confirmation that we exist.