Behind the Facades
Originally published on Novisali in May 2026.
Behind the Facades – Photography, History, and Storytelling Along Stockholm’s Waterways explores how photography can become a way of seeing beyond surfaces. Through a visual journey across Stockholm’s inner archipelago, the reflection weaves together photography, architecture, history, memory, and cultural storytelling. ()
The post follows how villas, shorelines, reflections, and waterways slowly reveal hidden stories of artists, architects, industrial families, cultural patrons, and creative lives that once shaped these places.
Reflections
Photography can transform ordinary observation into deeper presence and discovery.
Places often carry invisible layers of memory, culture, and human stories.
Water, light, and reflections change how landscapes and architecture are perceived.
Historical environments become more alive when approached through curiosity and imagination.
The camera can become both observer and storyteller.
The Message
Behind the Facades reminds us that places are rarely only physical environments. Beneath architecture and appearances live traces of conversations, creativity, relationships, and lives once lived there.
The reflection explores how slowing down through photography can open new ways of seeing — not only the city and its waterways, but also the hidden stories, atmospheres, and connections that quietly surround us every day.
Read the full reflection here:
Behind the Facades – Photography, History, and Storytelling Along Stockholm’s Waterways
About Liselotte Engstam, Digoshen & Novisali
Liselotte Engstam is an explorer of perspectives, an adventurer of ideas, a pathfinder of meaning, and a guide of timeless transitions. She bridges the worlds of board leadership and art, helping organizations and individuals navigate disruption while nurturing creativity and reflection.
As founder of Digoshen, she works with boards and leaders to expand future insights and reduce digital and sustainability blindspots. Through research, networks, and executive programs, Digoshen supports responsible value creation in the digital and sustainable age, contributing thought leadership via books, articles, events, Digoshen Exploring Leaders podcast, and blogs.
She also serves as Chair of the Boards Impact Forum in collaboration with the World Economic Forum and the Climate Governance. The Forum convenes board members, thought leaders, and experts in dialogues, webinars, and collaborative events, accelerating action on climate, AI, and sustainability.
Through her artistic practice as Novisali, Liselotte explores creativity and meaning. Her watercolors, digitally reimagined, invite reflection and renewal, offering perspectives that connect head, heart, and hand, and complementing her work with leaders and boards.
→ Discover more at www.Digoshen.com
→ Learn more at www.BoardsImpactForum.com
→ Find more about Liselotte at www.liselotteengstam.com and her Google Scholar page
→ Explore Liselotte’s art and reflections at www.novisali.com and follow on Instagram @novisali_arts