Using a multidisciplinary approach, including archival elements alongside her own images and installations, this project considers the history of the community surrounding a textile mill in Narva, Estonia, now closed, where members of the artist's family once worked. Kapajeva spent her childhood at the mill, drawing patterns and dreaming about becoming a fabric designer like her mother. The story of this one small community is set in the larger context of post-industrial cities worldwide as the loss of their former roles leave them seeking new identities. Drawing on aspects of her mother’s work, her own unrealised childhood dreams and the failed ambition of industrial collectivization, Kapajeva underlines the complex relationship between personal and public memory that together form our historical narratives. By including a range of different voices and approaches, she indicates that these histories can never be straightforward, but are shaped by multiple, often conflicting forces.

Dream Is Wonderful, Yet Unclear was published by Milda Books, Latvia, with the kind support of the Estonian Cultural Endowment, the British Council in Estonia, A Woman’s Work/ Creative Europe, and Photo Museum Ireland.