Personal Spam, selected by Lasse Dearman

Artist: Fryd Frydendahl
Title: Personal Spam
Publisher: Self published
Year: 2011
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Fryd Frydendahl is one of my favourite Danish photographers. My first encounter with Fryd was last year when I asked her for some feedback for a project I’m working on. It took her some time to reply but when she did, she’d made two PDF files; one of which had a note to each photo I’d mailed her and the second with a finished layout for a zine with my photos to illustrate her points in the feedback. Later, I wanted to buy her zine, Personal Spam, but as it was very expensive to ship to Denmark (it was sold from Dashwood books, NY) I asked Fryd if she had any copies stocked in Denmark; she didn’t but she offered to bring me a copy when she came back to Copenhagen from New York during winter. It’s rare to meet someone that helpful, and I really respect her for that. When I got the zine, it was sealed with a cardboard back so that it didn’t have any folds at all. Knowing this product was self published, it was easy to see how much thought and care had been put into it, which is hard not to appreciate. Personal Spam is a small newspaper shaped zine which contains seven photos, one on each spread. It’s hard to categorize her photography in genres as such. Fryd’s photos go beyond these boxes and create their own language in which she uses different subjects such as cats and humans to communicate her own mood and feelings. This is the outcome in Personal Spam too, rather than sharing others stories I think Personal Spam leaves a part of herself with the viewer.