Courtesy of the artist and Martin AsbækGallery

Trine Søndergaard’s retrospective exhibition consists of two separate series of photographs that the artist continued and developed over many years. The first, the project “Hovedtøj”, is a series of portraits of young girls who, while wearing their own contemporary clothes, at the same time put on historical headgear made in the 19th and early 20th centuries by women for women.

These historical fabrics function in the project as traces of a bygone era, a heritage of women who shaped their own community, so rich in expression, but now almost forgotten. The portraits are not personal in their meaning, but more universal, and the photographs do not focus on depicting the details of the outfit. Their essence is what cannot be found in clothes themselves, and what is associated with the female world of experiences. It is like a meeting in the course of two generations of women with very different ordeal and stories. With this procedure, the artist connects, but also confronts the past with the present, giving the images a timeless character.

Silence, sensitivity and restraint are expressive features that permeate all of Trine Søndergaard’s work. In the second series of the exhibition – “Interior” – the artist presents empty, desolated spaces, suggestive photographs of historic silent mansions and rooms. The chambers seem bare, revealing what is usually hidden behind furniture and other objects. The images create a poetic experience of space, suggesting existential anxieties such as abandonment, loneliness, sadness and reflection and nostalgia.

Curator: Maja Kaszkur