Forty-five years ago in 1974, two men went missing in separate incidents in Southwest Iceland. The facts of their disappearances are scarce, and often mundane. An 18 year old set off from a nightclub, drunk, on a ten kilometre walk home in the depths of Icelandic winter. Some months later, a family man failed to return from a meeting with a mysterious stranger. In another time or place, they might have been logged as missing persons and forgotten by all but family and friends. Instead, the Gudmundur and Geirfinnur case became a notorious unresolved double murder investigation that continues to rock Icelandic society to this day.
Latham photographed the places and people that feature in the many varied accounts of what happened to Gudmundur and Geirfinnur after they vanished, resulting in his Sugar Paper Theories project. Spending time with the surviving suspects, as well as whistleblowers, conspiracy theorists, expert witnesses and bystanders to the case, Latham’s photographs and material from the original police investigation files stand in for memories real and constructed.
