Deborah Turbeville and Ikram Abulkadir Explore Fashion and the Body

Two parallel exhibitions in Stockholm bring together the photographic practices of Deborah Turbeville and Ikram Abdulkadir, framing fashion and portrait photography across different generations and contexts

The term “exhibition” is singular, but in practice, it rarely is. What we see is shaped not only by what stands in front of us, but by what surrounds it; what we have just seen, and what we carry forward, and in this case, the exhibition next door. Meaning accumulates across encounters, and it is this logic that underpins Moderna Museet’s decision, in collaboration with Photo Elysée, to present late-American fashion photographer Deborah Turbeville alongside one of her contemporaries. Reflecting on Turbeville’s position within photographic history, curator Nathalie Herschdorfer describes her as “completely underrecognised,” particularly in comparison to male photographers working at the same time, such as Helmut Newton, Guy Bourdin and Irving Penn, who are often idolised as canonical. “We are now in a time where we have to rewrite the history of photography, to include other names,” she says. 

It was through this reassessment that curator Anna Tellgren introduced Swedish-Somali photographer Ikram Abdulkadir to Turbeville’s work, and the exhibition pairing began to take shape. “I introduced her to Turbeville,” Tellgren recalls. “She received a book and said, ‘This is fantastic.’” Tellgren and Herschdorfer saw a continuity between the two artists and selected Abdulkadir as the photographer to be exhibited alongside Turbeville. When asked why, they make it clear that the exhibition becomes plural. “It’s a continuation between women photographers across generations. Those who know Turbeville will discover Abdulkadir, and Abdulkadir has a lot of people who will discover Turbeville.”

Installed on the second floor of the converted power station in central Malmö are two concurrent exhibitions: Deborah Turbeville – Photocollage, curated by Nathalie Herschdorfer in collaboration with MUUS Collection, and Ikram Abdulkadir – Soft Focus, curated by Anna Tellgren. They remain formally separate, but are held in deliberate proximity. Across generations and contexts, the photographers approach fashion, portraiture, and the body from distinct positions, while allowing points of resonance to surface through how their work is seen in relation.

Spanning photography, photo books and collages, Deborah Turbeville – Photocollage chronicles the work of the late American photographer, exploring her experimental oeuvre that, at the start of her career, challenged the ways fashion photography was seen and produced. Although Turbeville worked extensively for commercial publications, Vogue and Harper’s Bazaar to name a few, she gradually stepped away from editorial conventions to experiment. The aim was to capture women differently than her male counterparts, not only through their physical rendering, but also image production and collages. Her work, in other words, centres around how atmosphere and feeling can come from art.

Across works such as Untitled (Asser Levy Bathhouse) (c. 1975) and her seminal Venice series (1978), the female body appears within interiors in a semi-paradoxical manner; carefully constructed yet deliberately unstable. Turbeville’s women are styled in bathing suits, silk dresses and fur coats, but the clothing dissolves into atmosphere, where the wider image holds an almost greater weight. This approach extends into her photocollages, where images are cut, layered and reassembled into composite works. The photograph shifts from surface to object – constructed rather than captured – where meaning is no longer contained within a single frame but produced through fragmentation and assembly.

When discussing the similarities between Turbeville and Abulkadir, Tellgren explains that while the young Swedish photographer also explores fashion, her work inhabits a more personal practice through her subject and approach. Her life is her canvas, which is not as directly seen in Turbeville's work. In Turbeville’s Bathhouse series Venice series, the body is absorbed into constructed environments where clothing becomes atmosphere rather than advertisement. In Abdulkadir’s Self portrait (2026) and Doreen, David (2023), visibility emerges through relation and closeness. While clothes are present, the women as humans are the focal point. 

At the core of Ikram Abdulkadir – Soft Focus is an extensive personal archive built over time. Her photographs bring together friends and family captured in domestic interiors, streets and public spaces in Malmö, with a sense of familiarity and repetition. Her visual language is built not only through her subjects, but also her colour palette, which moves between muted greens, blues and browns to sudden saturated tones of red, pink and purple. With a nod to Turbeville, techniques such as double exposures and overexposure soften the image, introducing moments where form becomes less fixed and more atmospheric.

Most visitors, the curators note, will arrive knowing only one of the two artists. “Some visitors will come for one artist and discover the other,” they explain. In practice, the exhibition does not resolve this imbalance, but builds from it. To move between Turbeville and Abdulkadir is to move between distinct ways of seeing – where meaning is not fixed within either room, but shaped in the passage between them. “You can see similarities, but they are also very different, and that’s what makes the combination interesting.” What emerges is less a direct comparison than a continuity: women photographing across different moments and contexts, turning toward their own lives and surroundings as material, and finding space within photography to experiment with how those lives are seen.

Deborah Turbeville – Photocollage and Ikram Abdulkadir – Soft Focus are on show at Moderna Museet in Stockholm until 27 October 2026.