Group Photo.2017

2017

Inkjet print, 70×100 cm, edition of 5+AP

In September 2017, just before the opening of an exhibition ‘Dream Is Wonderful, Yet Unclear’ in Narva, I invited former workers of a local closed textile mill to be part of a group photo in front of the former main gates of the mill – a meaningful place in their lives, and, also, as a transitional space, highlighted by Harun Farocki in his work ‘Workers Leaving The Factory in 11 Decades’.

Altogether 160 former workers between the ages of 40 and 90 came and each of them received a copy of this photograph after. For me it was an attempt to offer them a disappeared feeling of unity and togetherness, which for many of them has already turned into rather nostalgia than true memories of their working times at the mill. 

The video work based on the event can be viewed here.