Grandma Pipí at the age of 76 has given birth to 18 children, she´s got 64 grandchildren, and 100 great-grandchildren, 2006, by Maya Økland

Contender Maya Økland's series Stranger in Motherland is a meditation on the complexity of family and geography. Maya was born in Norway to a Norwegian/Icelandic father and Brazilian mother but she has lived mostly in Sweden. Growing up, she spent weekends and holidays with her father who, she writes, "moved around a lot." On the maternal side of her family she is one of 64 grandchildren to her Grandma Pipi (above). Every five years she has traveled to "the other side of the world" to visit this extended family in Tocantins, Brazil, and in the past several years she has begun to document them. "Photography became important to me in the sense of overcoming distance," writes Maya, but also, "recalling faces."

Aunt Cleonice and her boyfriend Willian, 2007, by Maya Økland

The portraits themselves are quietly beautiful, conveying the candid closeness of family and the geographical disconnect between distant relatives. Maya's use of unusually long, descriptive captions allow the viewer to tease out a multi-generational, cross-continental story. It brought to mind a recent post on eyecurious titled The Art of the Caption, an oft-neglected aspect of photography that Maya is acutely aware of.

Installation shot of Stranger in Motherland from New Nordic Photography at Hasselblad Center, Gothenburg, 2006

When the series is installed, the narrative truly comes together. Around fifty photographs of different sizes are pinned on the wall in a formation that seems to branch out or cluster, with images scattered as if they were points on a map. In this sense, Maya seems to be dealing with documenting, cataloging, and arranging these strange yet important relationships, on an aesthetic and emotional level.

You can view more of Maya's work on her website.