​he Monotropic Pull was an installation developed for the group exhibition ‘Mellom linjene’ (Between the lines) at the old Munch museum in October 2025. It grew out of my thoughts about attention, repetition, sensory sensitivity, what it means to focus deeply on something, and about the joy that can exist in that kind of focus. It felt somewhat ironic that the exhibition was called 'Between the lines', since that phrase points to a type of reading that I have never found easy: understanding what is not said. I like it when language is clear, when words mean what they are supposed to mean. Maybe that’s why I’ve always been drawn to academic writing, while poetry sometimes escapes me. Yet, when it comes to visual art, the story is different. While I often find verbal ambiguity difficult to grasp, visual ambiguity speaks to me in a completely different way.

The work consists of forty-two handmade silver gelatin prints, made from five different negatives with simple motifs. Each print differs slightly, in exposure, contrast, or tone, and I also made some double exposures. Mounted directly on the wall at Gamle Munch museum, they formed a collage that shifted depending on where you would stand. From a distance the shapes seemed abstract but up close, small details would emerge, echoing and diverging each other.

The idea of monotropism — the notion that some of us experience attention as a narrow and deeply focused current — has accompanied me while working on this. For me, it offers a way to understand both my difficulties and my strengths.

These are handmade darkroom works, and through this work I am processing my own, very late diagnosis of autism. The work is part of a larger ongoing project around this theme.