Kristian Buus

The Danish Prime Minister Mette Frederiksen declared on March 30th that 'the weakest and most vulnerable would have to be the strongest" _ and while Denmark is slowly opening up after months of corona lock-down, care homes are still a no go are for friends and relatives of elderly people living there. I met some of them to hear what life was like in a car home in an age of corona. Når de svageste skal være de stærke - livet på et plejehjem i en coronatid. Statsminister Mette Frederiksen sagde på et pressemøde d 30. marts: “Jeg nødt til at sige til vores ældre og til de mest sårbare: I må fortsat forvente at skulle indrette jer efter smitterisikoen noget tid endnu. Vi beder de svageste om at være de stærkeste.” Mere end 2 måneder after at Danmark blev lukket ned, og alt imens resten af landet er ved at åbne op, må pårørende stadig ikke komme indenfor på besøg. De kan mødes udenfor, men der skal holdes afstand, dvs stadig ingen knus og kram. Jeg har mødt en række borgere for at høre om livet på et plejehjem i en corona-tid. Jeg må ikke komme indenfor, så vi har snakket sammen udenfor, og jeg har fotograferet dem i deres stuer gennem vinduerne. Ofte bliver ældre overset i samfundsdebatten, og formentlig bliver plejehjemsbeboere de sidste, til at leve frit igen, oven på corona krisen.

From the series 'Portraits of 5.C - a class photo in a time of Corona anno 2020.' The portraits were taken during the lock-down and were taken in the door of their homes at a safe distance and without entering the house. At the time of taking the portraits no-one knew what to expect and most of Denmark is still under special measures. The school was, like all schools in Denmark, shut down March 16th 2020. Danish Prime Minister called for a Mette Frederiksen called for a lock-down of the country including the closure of all schools, and a ban on all larger gatherings because of the spreading Corona Virus. All of a sudden all the kids were asked to stay at home, in isolation, and the school was left lying empty and silent.   The kids have had to make sense out of this and create a daily life of their own, away from their friends. For weeks all teaching and homework has been done online, in living rooms, in kitchens or alone in their rooms. Every so often the kids of 5.C have met online with each other and their teachers but physically most of them haven’t met for almost 4 weeks.

School children enjoy their first day back in school after 4 weeks of corona lock-down, April 17th 2020, Denmark.

The Arrestables is a series of portraits and interviews of Extinction Rebellion activists, all of whom have stepped forward ready to be arrested. Extinction Rebellion is a new British born climate activist movement which aims to push hard for policy changes on the ongoing climate crisis. The human and natural world is facing a serious threat of mass extinction because of climate change and the climate activists wants to push for dramatic and radical policy changes to avoid a possible extinction. One of the tools to do this is peacefull but determined mass civil disobedience where people sign up to be arrested. In April alone more than 1200 protesters were arrested in London when they shut down Central London and many more will come in the struggle for long lasting solutions to the climate emergency.

Vi ER den blandede By / We ARE the mixed city. Portrætter fra et alment boligbyggeri i København. Lundtoftegade kom i 2018 på regeringens ghetto-liste og 'Vi ER den blandede by' er en kampagne sat i gang af lokale beboere for at få afskaffet den kontroversielle ghettolov. Nogle ser boligbyggeriet Lundtoftgade, som en farlig ghetto, fuld af uønskede utrygskabende unge, og et 'parallelsamfund', men for dem, der bor i byggeriet er det deres hjem. Beboerne føler at de er blevet misrepreæsenteret i medierne og af politikerne, og portrætserien er et forsøg på at sætte ansigter på dem, som bor i Lundtoftegade. På mange måder er et boligbyggeri som Lundtoftegade, som en landsby i byen, og med kampagnen ‘Vi ER den blandede by’, står beboerne sammen for at nedbryde fordomme og vise verden, hvor blandet en flok de egentlig er. De 24 portrætter er blot en lille del af de mere end 100 beboere, som fik taget deres portræt. Kampagnens formål er at få skaffet nok underskrifter til, at loven kan blive revuderet i folketinget med henblik på at få den afskaffet. ENGLISH The Danish Government introduced the controversial ghetto law in 2010. If the population on a housing estate has got too low an income, too low an education, too many with no higher education, too many with a criminal record, and in particularly too many immigrants it is considered a ghetto. On that basis some of the people living on the estate can be made to move out and their flats may be sold off on the private housing market. The housing estate Lundtoftegade has been on the ghetto list since 2018 and people living on the estate fear that they may be forced to move out in a few years if this does not change. The campaign 'We ARE the mixed city' is an attempt to correct the misrepresentation that many on the housing estate feel they get in the media and by law makers. The aim of the campaign is to raise enough signatures to get the ghetto law re-assessed and stopped in the Danish Parliament. More than a hundred residents took part and they are now part of a coordinated campaign to save not just their own homes but other estates around Denmark, also under threat.