Jacob Aue Sobol: James’ House
“James’ House is my second book in The Greenland Trilogy. My first book Sabine from 2004 was a love story, and so is James’ House. It’s about my love and admiration for an Inuit man and his continuous fight to provide for his family.
The story takes place from 1999-2002 when I lived in Eastern Greenland trying to become a hunter and a fisherman while taking pictures of the life I shared with the people living there.
James was my friend when I lived in Tiniteqilaaq. He taught me how to spot seals and use the tools of a hunter. He taught me when to speak and when to be silent. How to be present.
For the years I was in Tiniteqilaaq, James’ House seemed like the center of the universe. It was a house full of laughter, crying and silence. A place of warmth and embrace.
Today the house is empty. James’ wife passed away and he moved with his children to the nearest town, Tasiilaq.
This book is a memory of the time and love I shared with James and his children.” (Jacob Aue Sobol)
About the Author
Jacob Aue Sobol was born in Copenhagen, Denmark in 1976. A photographer and member of Magnum Photos, he has published several monographs of his unique, expressive style of black-and-white photography and exhibited his work widely. His images focus on the universality of human emotion and the search for love within oftentimes harsh surroundings.
Jacob lived in Canada from 1994-95 and Greenland from 2000-2002. In Spring 2006 he moved to Tokyo, living there 18 months before returning to Denmark in August 2008. He has traveled extensively in the years since, photographing in Siberia, Thailand, Mongolia, America, and China while staying based in Copenhagen.
After studying at the European Film College, in 1998 Jacob was admitted to Fatamorgana, a Danish school for documentary and art photography. In the autumn of 1999 he went to live in the settlement Tiniteqilaaq on the East Coast of Greenland. Over the next three years, he lived mainly in this township with his Greenlandic girlfriend Sabine and her family, living the life of a fisherman and seal hunter but also photographing. The resulting book “Sabine” was published in 2004.
In the summer of 2005, Jacob traveled with a film crew to Guatemala to make a documentary about a young Mayan girl’s first journey to the ocean. The following year he returned by himself to the mountains of Guatemala, where he met the indigenous Gomez-Brito family. He stayed with them for a month to tell the story of their everyday life. The series won first prize in the Daily Life category of World Press Photo in 2006.
In 2006 he moved to Tokyo and during the next two years, he created the images for the book “I, Tokyo,” which was awarded the Leica European Publishers Award in 2008.
Following his time in Tokyo, Jacob worked extensively in Bangkok, resulting in the 2016 book “By the River of Kings.” In 2012 he began photographing along the Trans-Siberian Railroad and spent the next five winters photographing in the remote Russian province of Yakutia for his project “Road of Bones.” He has ongoing projects in Denmark (“Home”) and the United States (“America”).
