Photographers have long been drawn to the unique landscape of the island of Föhr and its inhabitants. One of these artists is Mila Teshaieva, who lived on the island for a year and a half as an artist in residence, creating portraits of its inhabitants. To create these photographs she used the technique of “light painting”, requiring complete darkness and a torch as the sole source of light. The artist used this laborious and time-consuming method to create fascinating portraits which call to mind the paintings of Netherlandish artists of the Baroque.

The “Island Being” that the photographer discovered through this process allows the viewer to delve into a seemingly unreal, mystical atmosphere. The portrait subjects are documented in their immediate living environments, in an almost ethnographic fashion. In order to display these living environments of the island’s inhabitants in greater detail, a number of them were interviewed and filmed by staff at the MEK. Everyday objects and historical photographs from the MEK collection and loans from the Museum Kunst der Westküste, the Friesen Museum and from numerous inhabitants of Föhr provide documentary snapshots of everyday life on the island.