What is it that makes Nordic design so exemplary? How do the origins of young designers from these countries influence their inimitable sense of style and aesthetics? In The Weather Diaries, the artist duo Cooper & Gorfer explores the roots of West Nordic fashion and design traditions.
The artists were commissioned by Nordic House Iceland to curate the 2014 Nordic Fashion Biennale and to create an artistic presentation of the event. To this end, they travelled throughout Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland to stage and photograph the work of selected fashion designers. The resulting images, which are inspired by the painting of the eighteenth and nineteenth century as well as unrelenting Nordic weather conditions, are collected in this compelling book and exhibition titled The Weather Diaries, which opens this Friday, March 21, 7:00pm at the Museum Angewandte Kunst Frankfurt.
Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer take an unusual approach to their topic by telling its story visually. The curators of the third Nordic Fashion Biennale present the work of both young and established West Nordic designers in a striking collection of photography that they shot on-location throughout Iceland, the Faroe Islands, and Greenland. Showcasing the fashion in dramatic natural settings, their images are fused with a dark romanticism and, like much of their work, are reminiscent of eighteenth and nineteenth-century painting. Defying categorization, Cooper & Gorfer’s photos bring together fashion, photography, and painting. Their work goes beyond pure documentation and is interpretive, narrative, and utterly distinctive.
The Weather Diaries features fashion designers Mundi, Jör By Guðmundur Jörundsson, Steinnun, Barbara Í Gongini, Guðrun & Guðrun, Bibi Chemnitz, and Najannguaq Lennert, as well as the jewelry designer Kría, craftsman Nikolaj Kristensen and the artists Jessie Kleemann, Rammatik and Hrafnhildur Arnardóttir a.k.a. Shoplifter.
