Elsa & Johanna : “The Timeless Story of Moormerland”, Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris

French photographic duo Elsa & Johanna open the MEP Studio Season with an exhibition devoted to their latest project The Timeless Story of Moormerland, from September 7 to November 6 2022.

Presented in the form of an installation composed of a projection of 160 slides and silver prints, this project, realized in Germany in May 2021, is shown for the first time in France. For four weeks, Elsa & Johanna travelled through the north of the country and temporarily settled in fifteen or so communities, including Moormerland, in Lower Saxony. The artists carefully chose houses with an old-fashioned charm which they occupied while imagining and embodying some twenty characters: a father, a melancholy young teenager, a housewife… The result is photographs which bear witness to an imaginary neighbourhood life enveloped in a strange atmosphere with a cinematographic aesthetic, characteristic of the duo.

The use of autofiction, at the heart of Elsa & Johanna’s work, allows them to portray characters freed from their own identity, questioning in passing the contemporary individual, the notions of self-representation and anonymity. From these images, organised like a family album mixing posed portraits, spontaneous photographs and fragments of scenery, multiple narratives are born.

Find out more information on MEP.fr

PRACTICAL INFORMATION

The Timeless Story of Moormerland

7th September — 6th November 2022

MEP – Maison Européenne de la Photographie, Paris
5/7 rue de Fourcy
75004 Paris