The series Steinholt – A Story of the Origin of Names, alludes to the transmission of names in order to perpetuate memory. The photographer has created his own personal fresco here, in some cases intending to recall details of the past, but which manages to go far beyond the sole evocation of bygone events. Even when portraying specific places and experiences, these images do not require anecdotal explanation. The natural environment in these areas, so ill suited to sustaininghuman life, retains a beauty and purity that is difficult to find in more hospitable settings. Dwellings, be they ruins or recently abandoned, make up for meagre furnishings with breathtaking views from unhinged windows. In the digital era of fast, distracted communication, Christopher continues to use old, heavy analogue cameras and black-andwhite roll film that he develops and prints himself. The months spent immersed in this landscape, exposed to the elements, are followed by long days in his darkroom in the South of France, where his time is consumed in sealing these memories on paper, sustained by endless cups of tea. The photographer’s Icelandic summers, swathed in boundless light, are thus followed by long periods of self-imposed darkness. It is through this rigorous regime that his images are distilled, delivered as hymns to beauty in which blacks and whites of endless hue lend an ethereal quality to these snapshots of life... Monica Dematté