Station: [21] Mila Teshaieva: „Elisabeth / Doubt“ (2014)

What is the young woman thinking about? Is she worried? Is she weighing her thoughts to make a decision?

The figure of a young lady in a traditional North Frisian costume emerges from the dark. She looks regal, but also quite frail. Elisabeth keeps her gaze lowered and turns her right shoulder towards us. Moving her hand to her face, she dreamily reaches for the fringes of her headscarf which frame her pale face. The light scans the woman like a spotlight, making for high-contrast accents: just look how the shades of red of the shawl and headscarf light up, how the white lace trim and the delicate silver jewellery gleam. The darkness of the image is uncanny. At the same time, it gives us room to immerse ourselves in the scene.

As artist in residence at the MKdW, Mila Teshaieva visited Föhr several times. There, the Berlin-based photographer traced Frisian traditions and the unusual life journeys of today's islanders. For her portraits the artist employed a special technique called “light painting”, which goes back to the early days of photography. Teshaieva photographed her carefully arranged subjects with a very long exposure, so the sitters had to be patient! The scenes were illuminated with gentle torch movements, in order to highlight certain areas or objects. Devoid of signs of the modern world, the photographs have a painterly quality and seem to have fallen out of time.