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POLYVER SPRING CAMPAIGN
“When I tell others who don't fish that I'm going again, I'm often met with a profound bafflement at how I can be bothered. What is it that exists out there that makes me go again and again? It has to do with suspense, of course. I find a fundamental sense of expectation in trying to catch a fish, but it especially has to do with being in another place. It's unnecessary to fish, it's unproductive and inefficient. There are a number of better methods for getting food with fins on the table. And that's probably part of the point. It feels right to stride through the hills along the coast while I should really be working. Fishing is a space for doing something else. It's a space for being alone and being with others who share the obsession. It's a place where I don't have to explain myself.


Fishing is about waiting, it's about believing that what you want to happen will happen. To an onlooker, it probably looks like nothing ever happens until the fish takes the bait. But that's wrong. To many anglers, the end goal is of course to catch a fish, but to do that, one must activate a set of skills that need to be constantly moving. I'm never more focused than when I'm fishing. I'm completely engrossed in what I'm doing, and by that I mean reading the water. What's the current like? Is the water clear? Is it warm? But also the direction of the wind, whether it's possible to see fish. After that, it's about technique. Casting, choosing the right lure or the best fly for the day. Preparation is a large part of it. Checking the weather report the day before and right before going, considering different spots, and preparing the gear. Arriving at the spot, seeing a fish and casting the rod, waiting for the moment when it pounces, and then still fail. Because most of the time, I don't actually catch any fish.



Fishing is also about connecting to a landscape. But what kind? In Denmark, it means a completely transformed, cultivated nature, one that can be described as a kind of ruin where life continues in spite. A series of landscape ruins where on the other hand, new potentials for life continuously emerge, new troublesome connections which were previously unthinkable. Connecting to that type of landscapes, species, and lives requires a willingness to stay in the trouble, as the American thinker Donna Haraway put it. Being willing to stare into the nuances together with all the beautiful things, all the violence. It requires abandoning the idea of the human being as an independent individual, indeed it requires realizing that we're a species which depends on other species.. Staying in the trouble requires not falling back on an idea of a golden past and a terrible future, but instead staying to tell stories of a damaged earth, and finding out where life is possible to revive, restore, and repeat.



I say this without irony: We live in a time where we need to relearn to hope. We need to hope that we can do things differently than we did them before. This requires teaching ourselves new things, new ways of looking at the world. It also requires acceptance of the fact that even if we learn and master these things, there's no guarantee of success on the first try. But we may succeed if we persist. There is hope in the smallest actions.“

Eassay by Victor Boy Lindholm Talent: Victor Boy Lindholm -  writer, poet, fisher and runner
Photographer: Simon Knudsen
Video: Mads Schultz
Graphic Design: Frederik Gregersen
Text: Victor Boy  Lindholm
Stylist: Hyld Studio
Creative production and visual direction: HYLD STUDIO