F.F.F.F., IF-Files, 1998
F.F.F.F.
F-Files

F.F.F.F. was a group of artists whose name stood for their programme of “Fun For Five Females” as well as “femina” and “female”. The members Kristi Paap (*1973), Kaire Rannik (*1971), Berit Teeäär (*1970), Ketli Tiitsaar (*1972) and Maria Valdma (*1973) all studied jewellery design at the Art Academy in Tallinn. As F.F.F.F., they worked with installations and photography, focusing on the themes of gender and identity in a social and political context. They took part in several exhibitions, including “Gender Check” in Vienna in 2009. Today Paap, Rannik, Tiitsaar and Valdmar are jewellery designers in Estonia, while Teeäär is a photographer in Belgium. MM

In this series of eleven photographs, the women artists take on different female and male roles, posing in front of the camera. They explore the question of women’s identity in society by acting out a typology of various models of femininity in the form of a masquerade. Each artist in the group of five women plays one role. Whether as a mother with her child or as women in the kitchen, brides, rock stars, flight attendants, prostitutes, soldiers, business women at the airport, domestic workers in historical costumes or whether they are shown rummaging in garbage cans or dressed in traditional Estonian outfits – the artists deconstruct the portrait as a genre in photography, painting and press photography. Each woman is always every woman.

Courtesy Art Museum of Estonia

Format
photographs

Issue date
1998