‘What do you hold close? Where is your secret place of belonging? If you had to leave everything behind and begin again, who would you be?’

In a series of richly-imagined portraits, the artist duo Sarah Cooper and Nina Gorfer explore the idea of Utopia in the age of a new diaspora, where young women whose lives have been influenced by forced migration, are photographed like goddesses inside lustrous sets.

These vivid portraits are a judicious and of-the-moment examination of our historical memory and possibility. Cooper & Gorfer intertwine photographic portraiture with beautifully executed collage techniques and hand-drawn textures, blending photography and painting in their series, Between These Folded Walls, Utopia.

This book lets us delve into a colourful utopian theater, celebrating female power, and inviting us to partake in the emotional dance of hardship, hope and transformation.