”I’m not going to die yet. Not that I know of. Leif Sandberg knows. He knows he was a hair’s breadth from death and survived. That time. He was close to the border. He also knows, purely mathematically, that he does not have much time left before handing over to the rest of us to continue without him. That is the knowledge he is approaching here. He uses the photograph to formulate his own dry statement. A statement that is highly private, personal, unique or whatever you want. But in the long run, it is also a statement that we all in our own way must relate to personally. Being forced to face it is something we all suffer from. When Leif examines this with his photographs, he also does it together with his life partner and wife for 43 years. By collaborating with her, he also weaves the relationship into a central issue in his research. How far beyond ourselves do we reach? Is the body our real limit? It is precisely the last word of the previous sentence that I think is central to Leif Sandberg’s photographs. What does a border look like?”
JH Engström