Station: [19] Anja Jensen: „Premonition“ (2019)

In Anja Jensen’s photograph entitled “Premonition” a young woman dressed in traditional Frisian costume climbs up the crumbled side of a dune. Her back is turned to us as she looks at the landscape in front of her. Bands of intensely glowing clouds bathe the scene in mysterious twilight. One wonders: why did the young woman come to this deserted coastal stretch? Is she climbing up the dune to look out from the top? If so, who is she looking out for?

Anja Jensen created this work during her artist’s residency at the MKdW on Föhr. It is the result of an in-depth exploration of the island, its landscape and its inhabitants. The artist also drew inspiration from historical paintings in the collection of the Museum Kunst der Westküste. The connection to painting is evident, for example, in the pixelated image structure which is reminiscent of brushstrokes. The artist herself put it like this: “My photographs draw on images of women standing on dunes or by the water's edge and waiting for their men”. Her aim is to capture moments which vacillate between hope and expectation.

Such a moment is what we see here: the hope to soon be reunited with a loved one alternates with the fear that he might not return. Such ambivalent feelings are underscored by the atmospheric dusk: neither day nor night, neither beginning nor end, it is a time of in-betweenness and uncertainty.