23.5.2022 | History

A new exhibition has opened at Fotografiska that asks: If you had to leave everything and start again – who would you be?

Female photographers and artists Cooper & Gorfer have created an exhibition which is now open at Fotografiska in Tallinn, entitled “Between These Folded Walls, Utopia”. Cooper & Gorfer are American Sarah Cooper and Austrian Nina Gorfer.

The starting point of the exhibition is the current reality, which is a time when many have had to leave their homes and start their lives all over again. The humanitarian tragedies caused by war and the effects of climate change are causing waves of migration and immeasurable suffering.

Out of interest in the human story, the artists have also set up a playful utopian theatre for the exhibition. According to a photographic press release, Cooper & Gorfer ask the viewer questions: What are you grabbing? Where is your secret place? If you had to leave everything and start over – who would you be?

Confused by the realization that we are living in a time of loss of utopia, Cooper & Gorfer interviewed young women whose lives had been broken in one way or another as a result of forced migration. What are the dreams, identities, and secret longings of these women?

The protagonists of the brightly coloured portraits on display in the exhibition are these women. They have been described as goddesses. Using collage technology and cuts, Cooper & Gorfer construct multi-layered shapes in each work.

An imaginary theatre plays on surfaces, architecture and nature. The viewer finds themself in an infinitely enclosed space with walls, gardens and doorways.

The exhibition is open until September 18.

Cooper & Gorfer are artists Sarah Cooper (USA 1974) and Nina Gorfer (Austria 1979).

Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer have been working together since 2006. Their work has been exhibited at the Hasselblad Center in Gothenburg, the Danish National Museum of Photography in Copenhagen and Stockholm Fotografiska.

Cooper & Gorfer explore issues of memory, migration, transfer, and identity diversity, based on the life stories of the women they meet or collaborate with.