Morgaine Schäfer - Journey

The third solo exhibition by Morgaine Schäfer at fiebach, minninger takes us on a journey – between places, times, and states of being. A journey is more than just moving from one place to another. It emphasizes the transition, the path, the in-between. A journey can mean a physical movement or an inner process, a personal development, or a journey of life. This duality between physical and metaphorical movement is reflected in the works in the exhibition: from a distance, for example, we look at the lines of a highway drawn through a landscape, which on the one hand refer to long car rides but can also be read as a poetic symbol of journeys through life passing side by side. In her works, Morgaine Schäfer deals with the maternal line of her family history, viewed from the perspective of her West German father. Most of the photographic material dates from the 1970s. She systematically explores this family archive in order to analyse it with regard to different questions and contexts, to create new photographic works from it. In the current exhibition, Morgaine Schäfer is returning to her magnify series (since 2020), in which she focuses on individual aspects of the slides. She devotes herself to a precise analysis of content and formal details – selected motifs, textures, and colours – and emphasizes the meaning in specific image sections. By integrating smartphone displays, Schäfer combines analogue photography with digital technology, creating a new level of perception. The carefully selected background colours reinforce the image subject and create a harmonious and balanced unit. In this way, the originally private snapshots become universal narratives in their new contextualization. They speak of transitions – between Poland and West Germany, between capitalism and communism – and shift the focus from personal stories to social contexts. Journey therefore also poses fundamental questions about the significance of images for our memory, perception, and identity: How do we look at the past? Which stories do images reveal and which remain hidden? And what does it mean to look at other people's memories?