In Unravelled, Kajsa Gullberg turns her lens toward the body as an archive of lived experience. Photographing women who bear visible scars, she places their portraits alongside images drawn from the natural world—pairings that suggest the inevitability of imperfection and the persistent gap between ordinary flesh and the flawless forms our culture prefers. The women here are not presented as patients or case studies; they meet the camera directly, displaying what is usually hidden, and the result is an intimate record of vulnerability and self-possession alike.

The book’s emotional force comes from Gullberg’s willingness to work close to her subjects’ exposure—and to her own. As she has put it, she deliberately places herself in situations that make her vulnerable, so that she remembers what it is to be photographed. That reciprocity keeps sentimentality at bay. Across 49 tritone reproductions in an 88-page hardback, the sequence is raw and poetic rather than documentary, seeking beauty, strength, and pride where conventional images rarely look.

Originally from Gothenburg and long based in Copenhagen, Gullberg trained in both photography and graphic design, and Unravelled was published by Dewi Lewis in 2014. The book follows Familealbum (2007) and Eyecatcher (2009); the marks on these bodies extend an inquiry into how we see ourselves and one another. Its 20 by 30 cm format gives the portraits room to hold the eye without monumentality.

For collectors of contemporary photography, Unravelled matters for how lucidly it joins portraiture with a critique of perfection. It treats what the culture discards—the imperfect, the ugly, the embarrassing—as material for affection, and asks the viewer to extend the same regard to themselves. It is a quietly radical book, best read as an argument about tenderness and the terms on which we are willing to be seen.