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Outsider art or art brut in Estonia has not been researched much until recent years. As an object of research, outsider art is closely linked to developments in the fields of psychiatry and special care services and in the wider society – in Estonia, attitudes towards people with psychological special needs (mental disability, psychiatric diagnoses) have only recently started changing for the better. We have very little knowledge about older, that is, historical art created by people with special mental health needs, and we know almost nothing about such artworks made between 1920 and 1990. In the current state of research, we lack facts, so we can only make educated guesses when it comes to outsider art from the past. Estonian psychiatric hospitals, such as the clinic in Tartu (established in 1877), Jämejala near Viljandi (1897), Seewald in Tallinn (1903) and Pilguse in Saaremaa (1913), all simultaneously functioned both as medical institutions and care facilities until World War II. According to the Central Bureau of the Republic of Estonia in 1929, care was provided to around 3,000 mentally ill people. During the Soviet occupation, people with special mental health needs were increasingly institutionalised and the number of both people in special care and the number of care homes (or as they were called at the time, homes for invalids) increased. The political agenda of Soviet period care facilities was tied to ideas of re-education through labour (for people for whom such an approach was applicable)
After the Soviet occupation, especially from the 2000s onwards, social services were restructured and since then, one of the main objectives in special care has been deinstitutionalisation.
"},{"name":"core/heading","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"attributes":{"level":2,"title":"Establishing a centre"},"saveContent":"In 2003, I started working as the director of the Kondas Centre, an art museum that had just opened in Viljandi. The permanent exhibition presents the works of the naïve painter Paul Kondas (1900–1985), a school teacher from Viljandi and Suure-Jaani. As he was also a self-taught artist, the centre's mission is to research and introduce phenomena that often remain outside the established art world, such as self-taught and naïve artists and Sunday painters. A year after the museum was opened, I started going on research trips around Estonia to find artists who had a high drive to create art but modest knowledge and skill compared to professionals. Many of the original artists I met during the fieldwork between 2004 and 2008, were already elderly, and by now, almost all of them have left this world. Interviewing them, I found that these artists had mostly held simple jobs, lived in small towns and villages away from large centres and had had extremely limited contact with professional cultural fields. After a more active period of researching the legacy of naïve artists, my focus shifted towards art created by people with special mental health needs. The first exhibitions of works by artists in need of additional support
The first challenge we faced when starting the project as part of the One Hundred Art Landscapes programme was to find information about artists and how to reach them both in institutions and homes. How many could there even be in Estonia? We had many questions and not so many answers.
"},{"name":"core/paragraph","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"saveContent":"According to studies, there are up to 55,000 people with special mental health needs living in Estonia. That is as many as there are inhabitants in Narva, the third-largest city in Estonia. About 11,000 people receive either permanent or temporary care services, but in offering creative services to people in special care, we are lagging behind Western Europe by 20 to 30 years.
"},{"name":"www-blocks/image-block","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"attributes":{"caption":"Jüri Karpov, Abstraction I, 2017. Kondas Centre Collection","mediaData":"{\"url\":\"https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1.jpg\",\"width\":1000,\"height\":707,\"alt\":\"\",\"srcset\":\"https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1-300x212.jpg 300w, https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1.jpg 1000w\"}","mediaSrc":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1.jpg","mediaWidth":"25%","align":"right"},"saveContent":"As a first step, I turned to the list of special care facilities provided on the web page of the Social Insurance Board and began visiting these. Although these institutions are not generally very open, buzzwords like the \"centenary art programme\" and \"art exhibition\" opened doors to many support and day care centres. These visits allowed us to meet people creating art in the facilities, as well as the conditions and opportunities for crafting and making art on site but more broadly also how the system of special care operates. Sometimes differences of opinion appeared and it became clear we had a different understanding of what art is – in the facilities the personnel rarely thought that the people who live there make ‘art’, but rather they ‘draw things’. I witnessed how artworks made during the day were binned in the evening because \"they will make new ones\" the following day. Notably, weaving looms were present in almost all of the facilities – as a relic of the Soviet period attitude that the patents need to work, I assume – but high-quality paper, pencils and paint were much harder to find.
"},{"name":"core/paragraph","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"saveContent":"Before spring 2020, when care facilities were almost entirely closed due to the pandemic, I managed to visit around 25 special care facilities across the country – from Võru to Saaremaa and Pärnu to Narva. By early 2023, the Kondas centre had bought over 500 artworks thanks to the support of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and collected valuable material, interviewed artists as well as activities supervisors. The primary criterium for purchase was the level of artistry and in some cases, the remarkable story behind the piece.
"},{"name":"www-blocks/image-block","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"attributes":{"caption":"Lembar Linder, United States of EST, 2003. Kondas Centre Collection","mediaData":"{\"url\":\"https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST.jpg\",\"width\":933,\"height\":812,\"alt\":\"\",\"srcset\":\"https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST-150x150.jpg 150w, https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST-300x261.jpg 300w, https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST-905x788.jpg 905w, https:\\/\\/admin.ashadecolder.com\\/wp-content\\/uploads\\/2023\\/04\\/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST.jpg 933w\"}","mediaSrc":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST.jpg","mediaWidth":"50%","align":"center"},"saveContent":"On several occasions, these trips made me wonder about the source of creativity. For example, sometimes art is the only means of communication with the world, as was the case with Ingrid, a woman whose colourful images of communication are now part of the Kondas collection. Ingrid (b. 1952) is deaf and mute and lives in a care home in Sillamäe in Ida-Viru County, located in a hospital complex in the former closed Soviet city. Ingrid is mentally disabled and nobody ever taught her sign language, yet she started using drawing to communicate: whenever she needs something or has run out of something – hand cream, toilet paper, soap, clean clothes – she draws it on paper and brings it to a carer at her facility. Thanks to a volunteer from Sweden who worked at the care home years ago, Ingrid has been provided with high quality art supplies. In her case, making art is not just a practical need but also a way to express thoughts and feelings. An attentive observer, she depicts events around her; often she seems to mentally divide the surface of the paper in two, depicting two seemingly unrelated themes. Ingrid relieves stress and tension by drawing colourful squares in her notebook.
"},{"name":"core/paragraph","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"saveContent":"Jüri (b. 1971) lives in the largest special care home in south Estonia, in the city of Võru, where he was relocated as an adult after his mother died. He graduated from the Urvaste special-needs school but after coming to the care home, he stopped communicating. It took a long time before he began drawing with others in the activities room. Increasingly, his semi-abstract works began including dates and a few words. When he was asked something, he wrote the reply on paper; sometimes he would secretly hide scissors in his pocket and would cut up his shoes, unscrew skirting boards, or even his entire bed. When Jüri saw his works in the Kondas centre in 2018, he suddenly became extremely social, began speaking and once, disappeared in the city of Võru for two days. After this incident, his treatment was altered. In recent years, he does not draw as often and most of his works are black and white.
"},{"name":"core/paragraph","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"saveContent":"Based on these two brief examples, we can see that creating art is a tool for people who need additional support to better perceive and analyse the world around them, but it also provides others with the opportunity to understand their inner world.
"},{"name":"core/paragraph","parentNodeDatabaseId":1817,"saveContent":"Making talented creators visible and recognising their work helps people who need additional support to gain better conditions for making art and help society understand that different people should be met on equal grounds, which, in turn, helps create more cohesion in society in general.
"}],"articleAuthors":{"articleAuthors":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzY1","content":"\nMari Vallikivi is an art historian based in Viljandi, Estonia. She has worked as the director of the Kondas Centre art museum since 2003. Estonian outsider art has been her research focus over the last 15 years.
\n","title":"Mari Vallikivi"}]},"contributors":null},"terms":{"nodes":[{"name":"Shifting Timelines","slug":"shifting-timelines","description":"April 2023","id":"dGVybToyMw==","issueFields":{"issueColor":"#ff8d90","accentColor":"#000000","productUrl":"https://shop.ashadecolder.com/products/shifting-timelines"}}]},"categories":{"nodes":[{"name":"Past & Present","slug":"past-present","uri":"/category/past-present/"}]},"next":{"uri":"/process-result-or-notes-on-running-a-project-space-for-those-who-need-a-sign-to-start-one/"},"previous":{"uri":"/piecing-together-a-lost-history-forget-me-not/"},"seo":{"canonical":"","cornerstone":false,"focuskw":"","metaDesc":"","metaKeywords":"","metaRobotsNofollow":"follow","metaRobotsNoindex":"noindex","opengraphAuthor":"","opengraphDescription":"In-between systems and services Outsider art or art brut in Estonia has not been researched much until recent years. As an object of research, outsider art is closely linked to developments in the fields of psychiatry and special care services and in the wider society – in Estonia, attitudes towards people with psychological special needs […]","opengraphImage":{"sourceUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3.jpg","mediaDetails":{"height":1833,"width":1292}},"opengraphModifiedTime":"2023-05-11T10:02:39+00:00","opengraphPublishedTime":"2023-05-11T10:02:38+00:00","opengraphPublisher":"","opengraphSiteName":"A Shade Colder","opengraphTitle":"The Bumpy Road of Estonian Outsider Art - A Shade Colder","opengraphType":"article","opengraphUrl":"https://www.ashadecolder.com/the-bumpy-road-of-estonian-outsider-art/","title":"The Bumpy Road of Estonian Outsider Art - A Shade Colder","twitterDescription":"","twitterTitle":"","twitterImage":null}},"siteData":{"generalSettings":{"title":"A Shade Colder","description":"A Shade Colder is a platform for discussions about and around art in Estonia and beyond."},"seo":{"openGraph":{"defaultImage":{"sourceUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/og-image.jpg","mediaDetails":{"width":1600,"height":630}}}},"menu":{"menuItems":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDozNA==","path":"/about/","label":"About","target":null},{"id":"cG9zdDo3NQ==","path":"/contributors/","label":"Contributors","target":null},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MzQ=","path":"https://shop.ashadecolder.com/","label":"Shop","target":"_blank"},{"id":"cG9zdDo1MzI=","path":"/stockists/","label":"Stockists","target":null}]}},"categories":{"nodes":[{"id":"dGVybTo1","uri":"/category/editorial/","name":"Editorial","slug":"editorial"},{"id":"dGVybTo2","uri":"/category/features/","name":"Features","slug":"features"},{"id":"dGVybTo3","uri":"/category/interviews/","name":"Interviews","slug":"interviews"},{"id":"dGVybTo4","uri":"/category/commentary/","name":"Commentary","slug":"commentary"},{"id":"dGVybTo5","uri":"/category/essays-poetry/","name":"Essays & Poetry","slug":"essays-poetry"},{"id":"dGVybToxMA==","uri":"/category/past-present/","name":"Past & Present","slug":"past-present"},{"id":"dGVybToxMQ==","uri":"/category/video/","name":"Videos & Podcast","slug":"video"},{"id":"dGVybToxMg==","uri":"/category/events/","name":"Events","slug":"events"}]},"options":{"currentIssue":{"currentIssue":{"edges":[{"node":{"uri":"/issue/practices-in-dialogue/","name":"Practices in Dialogue","description":"October 2025","id":"dGVybTozMw==","issueFields":{"issueColor":"#c7d7bf","accentColor":"#4c4332","productUrl":null,"coverImage":{"node":{"id":"cG9zdDo0NDA1","sourceUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-scaled.jpg","mediaItemUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-scaled.jpg","srcLQIP":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-45x55.jpg","srcSet":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-1095x1350.jpg 1095w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-243x300.jpg 243w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-831x1024.jpg 831w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-768x947.jpg 768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-45x55.jpg 45w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-639x788.jpg 639w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-822x1013.jpg 822w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-913x1125.jpg 913w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-1461x1800.jpg 1461w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-1598x1969.jpg 1598w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-1246x1536.jpg 1246w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-1662x2048.jpg 1662w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/kaas-scaled.jpg 2077w","altText":"","caption":null,"title":"kaas","mediaDetails":{"width":2077,"height":2560}}}},"posts":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDo0Mjcx","title":"Practices in Dialogue","slug":"practices-in-dialogue","uri":"/practices-in-dialogue/","date":"2025-10-29T10:57:57","excerpt":"“Anna-Stina Treumund, what would you do today?” asks Rebeka Põldsam in an article that opens the 10th issue of A Shade Colder, Practices in Dialogue. Anna-Stina Treumund was a bold artist, recognised as the first lesbian artist in Estonia. She was also a good friend of the author and a posthumous solo exhibition at Kumu, […]
\n","content":"\n“Anna-Stina Treumund, what would you do today?” asks Rebeka Põldsam in an article that opens the 10th issue of A Shade Colder, Practices in Dialogue.
\n\n\n\nAnna-Stina Treumund was a bold artist, recognised as the first lesbian artist in Estonia. She was also a good friend of the author and a posthumous solo exhibition at Kumu, the largest art museum in Estonia, explores her contribution. Like friendly ghosts, the friends or people you admire and who are no longer here can often still inspire us to be better versions of ourselves. The dialogue continues.
\n\n\n\nIn this issue, A Shade Colder focuses on these and other kinds of dialogues between artists, performers and curators whose practices are shaping the art scene in Estonia and elsewhere.
\n\n\n\nIn the interview by Kathrin Heinrich, performance artist Netti Nüganen opens up about how she builds worlds on stage: often starting from learning a new technique, such as playing the banjo or black metal singing and then embarks on creating the performance based on these skills.
\n\n\n\nAbsurd moments and humour are something that might form a thread that connects Nüganen and the worlds created by artist Kaarel Kurismaa. Interviewed by artist and close collaborator Kiwa, Kurismaa openly reflects on his long practice that began by organising happenings while in art school in the 1950s. In early 2026, Kurismaa will open a solo show at Kunsthalle Zürich.
\n\n\n\nVanina Saracino writes about the works of artist Kristina Õllek, one of the most internationally active artists in Estonia at the moment. Saracino has been in dialogue with Õllek for many years. “How can image-making reveal what remains unseen, the invisible infrastructures and living processes that sustain the planet?” she asks.
\n\n\n\nLast but not least, I interview Paul O’Neill, a curator based in Helsinki, whose project, started many years ago, aims to bring curators of the region together and create a non-hierarchical platform to discuss the roles and activities that shape our everyday – a call for dialogue with the potential to find completely new forms of practice.
\n","featuredImageId":"cG9zdDo0NDAx","featuredImage":{"node":{"id":"cG9zdDo0NDAx","sourceUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-scaled.jpg","mediaItemUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-scaled.jpg","srcLQIP":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-45x46.jpg","srcSet":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-1330x1350.jpg 1330w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-295x300.jpg 295w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-1008x1024.jpg 1008w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-768x780.jpg 768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-45x46.jpg 45w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-776x788.jpg 776w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-998x1013.jpg 998w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-1108x1125.jpg 1108w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-1773x1800.jpg 1773w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-1939x1969.jpg 1939w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Illukas-10-copy-scaled.jpg 2521w","altText":"","caption":null,"title":"Illukas-10 copy","mediaDetails":{"width":2521,"height":2560}}},"categories":{"nodes":[{"slug":"editorial","name":"Editorial"}]},"terms":{"nodes":[{"name":"Practices in Dialogue","slug":"practices-in-dialogue","description":"October 2025","id":"dGVybTozMw==","issueFields":{"issueColor":"#c7d7bf","accentColor":"#4c4332","productUrl":null}}]},"articleAuthors":{"articleAuthors":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzY=","content":"\nKaarin Kivirähk is the editor-in-chief of A Shade Colder.
\n","title":"Kaarin Kivirähk"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0MTg2","title":"Anna-Stina Treumund, what would you do today?","slug":"anna-stina-treumund-what-would-you-do-today","uri":"/anna-stina-treumund-what-would-you-do-today/","date":"2025-10-29T10:54:18","excerpt":"Whenever I go to a protest, a feminist or queer gathering or event, I find myself wondering if Anna-Stina Treumund would have liked it. Or sometimes, whether she would have been bored and interfered somehow. Once, she slid over the audience down the auditorium at a Chicks on Speed performance in Tallinn, where the band […]
\n","content":"\nWhenever I go to a protest, a feminist or queer gathering or event, I find myself wondering if Anna-Stina Treumund would have liked it. Or sometimes, whether she would have been bored and interfered somehow. Once, she slid over the audience down the auditorium at a Chicks on Speed performance in Tallinn, where the band gave her a golden cape as a welcome to the stage. Chicks on Speed had been a cult queer feminist band, but at the Tallinn concert one member played from a video call, which felt like Tallinn fans were not relevant for the band. This show was certainly saved by Treumund. But who was Anna-Stina Treumund, the self-proclaimed first lesbian artist of Estonia?
\n\n\n\nFirst, Anna-Stina Treumund studied photography in Tartu, where she found close friends and models. Her early work is largely influenced by fashion photography, gay and women photographers who often portrayed themselves. Treumund’s staged photographs of her younger sister and herself come across as tools of introspection. Yet, for the viewer, these photographs say little about the artist’s inner world; instead, they offer a display for reflecting upon oneself. Next to depictions of mental states, often sad and oppressed, the two other significant motifs in her early work are intimacy and family (e.g., the series Studies of Sexuality 2005–2017). It seems that she always contemplated becoming a mother (e.g., Princess Diaries (2008); Mothers (2011)). In two or three of her series, she depicted her longing for connection with her family members (Family (2006)). In other works, she sought ways to depict functional relationships based on mutual trust and open dialogue, or what a lack of it looks like, or told stories about things swept under the covers (e.g., Silent Dialogues (2007)). Without meaningful social connections, a person feels lonely, and thus, many of Treumund’s photographs describe loneliness as a feeling of being cut off.
\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\nIn 2010, Treumund presented her MA graduation exhibition, You, Me and Everyone We Don’t Know, exhibiting portraits of herself and her sister, her friends and members of the lesbian community around her, including the video We’re Going to Have a Baby, showing a lesbian couple dancing. At this exhibition, the self-portrait Queer, where she is carried by another woman, was surrounded by lists of publicly bisexual, lesbian and queer women artists, writers and theorists handwritten on the wall. The events programme for the exhibition included a seminar, where Estonian feminist scholars, critics and other artists were introduced to queer theory as something that we could employ in our thinking. It was a time when feminist research was much more marginal in Estonian academic circles and queer theory was still less widespread globally compared to the 2020s.
\n\n\n\nTreumund knew she was not the first lesbian artist in Estonia, but in 2010, others simply would not define their artistic position as such. It must be emphasised that publicly claiming a lesbian position was a wildly bold statement – along with the introduction to queer theory – however, it was enthusiastically welcomed in the art field and by the audience. Previously, there had been some discussion about gay sensibility and a public lecture referring to Lee Edelman at a 2009 conference Men, Women and Others organised by the Gender Studies Research Group (RASI) at Tallinn University. Hence, Treumund’s demand (or command) to think queerly landed on receptive ground. Since then, queer theory has been employed in the analysis of existing works by gay and lesbian artists in Estonia as well as works depicting gays, lesbians, drag queens, and Pride marches with greater nuance and clarity. Perhaps this disclosure of sexual identities – as an alternative to the ambivalence which is often justified with apolitical or conservative statements – came across as threatening to the patriarchal culture and audiences, since despite the positive critical reception and relatively active participation in art through regular solo shows and group shows, Treumund never received any awards. However, in 2016 she had a solo show at Tartu Art Museum curated by Rael Artel and accompanied by a mid-career catalogue. In addition to that, the gender studies scholar Redi Koobak dedicated her entire PhD thesis to analysing Treumund’s early work.
\n\n\n\nAnna-Stina Treumund’s artistic explorations seeking a feminist and lesbian community continued with systematic work seeking traces of queerness from the national and generational past. In the series Woman in the Corner of Mutsu’s Drawings (2010), Treumund visualised a lesbian yearning for her other half (how normative is that?!) by restaging the series Together by Marju Mutsu, a beloved Estonian printmaker of the 1970s. In Mutsu’s prints, two orientalised women are moving to embrace each other on a bed, yet in Treumund’s work, the woman remains alone, until over a year later Treumund made a double portrait Together II with her partner at the time. Later, Treumund made Loser (2011) as another witty homage to Kai Kaljo’s legendary video work Loser (1997), where Kaljo explains how her ridiculously small income crushes her high artistic morale. Treumund’s Loser (2011) envisions heterosexist macho men who claim that their stereotypically homophobic attitudes are an essential part of their high moral standard – that is as absurd a contradiction as Kaljo’s depiction of the relationship between artistic determination and income.
\n\n\n\nTreumund’s historical explorations culminated with a series of photographs and an artist book, both titled Lilli, Reed, Frieda, Sabine, Eha, Malle, Alfred, Rein and Mari (Lugemik, 2012). This is so far the most exhibited series by Treumund – it depicts her friends, as in You, Me and Everyone We Don’t Know, but more significantly, it visualises the knowledge gap of the history of women-loving-women in Estonia. The photographs were inspired by archival and print media sources from the 16th to the 20th century, provided to Treumund by the literary scholar Vahur Aabrams. Since 2020, there is much more information available about Treumund’s Alfred or A. Oinatski. In 1929, Oinatski became the first Estonian trans person to be interviewed and portrayed in the Estonian media and who was instrumentalised by the 1920s–1930s eugenicist movement to advocate forced sterilisation of poor, uneducated and otherwise socially marginalised groups of people1Põldsam, R. 2020. Otsides kvääre lugusid sõdadevahelise Eesti ajakirjandusest. Mäetagused, 76, 95−124. DOI: 10.7592/MT2020.76.poldsam. In 2012, Treumund knew much less about this person, so her alter ego called Alfred was masculine. Another figure from Treumund’s series, Lilli Suburg, a writer and leader of women’s education and emancipation since the late 19th century, has gained significantly more interest among researchers. 2Over decades, Lilli Suburg is thoroughly studied by Eve Annuk. However, Piret Karro’s 2023 exhibition on women’s history Escape the kitchen! at Vabamu museum brought Suburg into public limelight as a significant person in the national history. Furthermore, unlike the Baltic German queer men, who belonged to a higher class of landowners, keeping local peoples as serfs since the 12th century crusades, the women remain unknown.3Ken Ird’s and Andreas Kalkun’s chapters in Kalevi alt välja. LGBT+ inimeste lugusid 19. ja 20. sajandi Eestist [Bring back to light. Stories of LGBT+ people from 19th and 20th century Estonia] edited by R. Põldsam, A. Kalkun, V. Aabrams. Tallinn: Eesti LGBT Ühing, 2022. And research on the history of other transgender and intersex people is also still modest.4See, Põldsam, R. 2020. Otsides kvääre lugusid sõdadevahelise Eesti ajakirjandusest. Mäetagused, 76, 95–124. Treumund therefore started working on the Estonian queer past in parallel with her good friend and fellow artist Jaanus Samma, who gained international recognition with his fictive opera NSFW: A Chairman’s Tale (2013/2015) based on ethnographic interviews with gay men and one of the most well-known court cases on the Pederasty Article in Soviet Estonia.5Samma, J., Viola, E., Rünk, M., Põldsam, R. (eds.). 2022. Not suitable for work. A Chairman’stale. Berlin: Sternberg Press & Tallinn: Center for Contemporary Arts. Cf Rünk, M. 2022. Kõigest hoolimata. Esimehe lugu [Despite Everything. The Chairman’s Tale]. Kalevi alt välja. LGBT+ inimeste lugusid 19. ja 20. sajandi Eestist. Tallinn: Eesti LGBT Ühing, 109–121. Põldsam, R. 2024 Homophobic Discourses and their Soviet History in Estonia. Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore, 92, 49−72. DOI: 10.7592/FEJF2024.92.poldsam.
\n\n\n\nDuring Treumund’s lifetime no one studied lesbian past in Estonia, so in 2013, she continued creating a series on fairy tales and a lesbian childhood. It seems that the photograph Reading Jane Eyre, where Treumund’s partner is spanking her with a barely noticeable smirk, offers an introduction to the later BDSM series. For Treumund, BDSM was a new exciting community activity. BDSM is based on the ethics of consent: it opened her to new avenues of sexuality and learning something new was wholly invigorating. Treumund started to photograph queer feminist pornography, showing playful scenes of sex and moments before sex, finding inspiration from the erotics of genderbending and showing skin. As she says in the video Princess Diaries II (2014), she had a submissive man from Vienna (where she was studying at the time) and she enjoyed being a dom. This short chapter of Treumund’s life as a dom is still a curious story that her friends sometimes discuss. Although in Princess Diaries II (2014), Treumund argues that she is considering giving up art to have a child and a different life, BDSM inspired her to expand her practice so that she moved on from photography and video to installations and sculpture using bondage and latex materials, joking about sex and pleasure, and making some watercolour paintings of her egg cells.
\n\n\n\nTreumund made bold artistic statements on female sexuality with complete seriousness, but when I think of her, I remember her warm crackling laughter. She was so proud of her work and she knew perfectly well her formative role in the queer lesbian movement in Estonia. It was Treumund who introduced queer theory, initiated queer reading groups and Ladyfest Tallinn (2011–2018), which grew into further artistic activities and fostered friendships, romantic relationships and much more. While in retrospect it is easy to idealise Anna-Stina Treumund for her courageous and sometimes contradictory statements, her bravery to come out as lesbian in a very straight art field – that continues to view itself as queer-friendly and anti-racist but rarely succeeds in the exclusion of predators – was unprecedented. I often wonder what Treumund would do about the wars and increasing inequality around us. Would the artist community’s contribution to social activism be any different with her part of it? Would there be a stronger alliance between queer-feminist and lesbian artists of different generations if she were around? When I think that she never saw equal marriage in Estonia, it suddenly seems that she lived in a particularly raw time. Treumund was really a queer person – as in a fuck shit up person – who would not leave you feeling more at ease with yourself. She struggled with clinical depression for half of her life and had no issue expressing her discomfort, upset or opposition to you directly, which sometimes was honest and sometimes impolite. Most importantly, she always expected people to be kinder, smarter and articulate about their points of view. Anna-Stina Treumund would dream people around her to be better and not just give up on making the world a liveable place for all. So, don’t become a cynic, don’t give up!
\n\n\n\nRebeka Põldsam is Research Fellow in Ethnology at University of Tartu. She is currently working on the project Imagining Queer Aging Futures – A Study of LGBTQ Aging in Estonia, Poland and Sweden. In 2023, she defended her doctoral dissertation Why are we still abnormal?! History of Discourses on Non-Normative Sex-Gender Subjects in Estonia at the University of Tartu. Põldsam is also a freelance feminist art curator and a visiting lecturer at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
\n","title":"Rebeka Põldsam"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0Mjc4","title":"With humour, the absurd and seriousness I emerged. Bop and bop! – Interview with Kaarel Kurismaa","slug":"with-humour-the-absurd-and-seriousness-i-emerged-bop-and-bop-interview-with-kaarel-kurismaa","uri":"/with-humour-the-absurd-and-seriousness-i-emerged-bop-and-bop-interview-with-kaarel-kurismaa/","date":"2025-10-29T10:53:46","excerpt":"I encountered Kaarel Kurismaa’s work for the first time as a child when the Estonian National Television showed his animated films. I was also impressed by the gigantic blinking light object that made an appearance at the finale of Šlaager (1982), a film about the pop music industry of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Also […]
\n","content":"\nI encountered Kaarel Kurismaa’s work for the first time as a child when the Estonian National Television showed his animated films. I was also impressed by the gigantic blinking light object that made an appearance at the finale of Šlaager (1982), a film about the pop music industry of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic. Also in the 1980s, Kurismaa’s psychedelic objects could be seen as part of studio design for Sven Grünberg’s musical performances in television shows. In the mid-1990s, Kurismaa taught us colour theory and a special course in kinetic art at the Estonian Academy of Arts. While the founding of the Soros Center for Contemporary Art created a radical divide in the Estonian art field – the old and the new generation – Kurismaa with his kinetic art exhibitions seemed to adapt to the paradigm shift painlessly. In the early 2000s, myself and many other artists wanted to make music instead of art and the only artist from the older generation we found who could offer us guidance was Kaarel Kurismaa. At the time, however, we didn’t know sound art was a legitimate artform and not just a no-man’s-land inhabited by a few freaks. In 2001, we established the first sound art platform Metabor and asked Kurismaa to join us. We organised experimental noise and sound art nights, using his sound machines – in a former hospital, abandoned factory, a Soviet monumental park, inside an old ice breaker etc. It is admirable how Kurismaa, who was 60 at the time, still had the energy to participate in experimental techno events in post-industrial dens in the middle of the night with young exploring artists! We were young and anxious and he balanced it out with his unique calmness. We considered him our guru, because this is exactly what his sound and noise machines are – pure magic and vibration that unfolds in the space.
\n\n\n\nKiwa (Kiwanoid as sound artist) is an Estonian multichannel meta-artist, publisher, writer and neoist.
\n","title":"Kiwa"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0MTY0","title":"Between Fantasy and Hardcore Reality: The Performance Worlds of Netti Nüganen","slug":"between-fantasy-and-hardcore-reality-the-performance-worlds-of-netti-nuganen","uri":"/between-fantasy-and-hardcore-reality-the-performance-worlds-of-netti-nuganen/","date":"2025-10-29T10:53:24","excerpt":"In her stage and video works, Estonian performance artist and musician Netti Nüganen becomes, among others, a weightlifter, teenage vlogger, detective, historian and cowboy. Her characters allow her to build and deconstruct narratives crucial to her method of understanding the gaps between recognisable references and language, as she puts it. A graduate of the School for New […]
\n","content":"\nIn her stage and video works, Estonian performance artist and musician Netti Nüganen becomes, among others, a weightlifter, teenage vlogger, detective, historian and cowboy. Her characters allow her to build and deconstruct narratives crucial to her method of understanding the gaps between recognisable references and language, as she puts it. A graduate of the School for New Dance Development (SNDO) in Amsterdam, her works have been shown internationally, while also touring with Florentina Holzinger’s ensemble pieces since 2017. During a recent conversation in Vienna, where she has been living for the past three years, Netti discussed her evolving practice of world-building through performance with Kathrin Heinrich – from sound experiments and fragmented storytelling to the theatrical traps she seeks to escape.
\n\n\n\nKathrin Heinrich is an art historian, writer and critic based in Vienna, Austria. She currently works at mdw – University for Music and Performing Arts, organising the yearly interdisciplinary summer school isaResearch. Her writing has been published in magazines and newspapers such as frieze, springerin, Texte zur Kunst, Der Standard, and Süddeutsche Zeitung.
\n","title":"Kathrin Heinrich"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0MzI4","title":"Breath of the deep sea: Kristina Õllek","slug":"breath-of-the-deep-sea-kristina-ollek","uri":"/breath-of-the-deep-sea-kristina-ollek/","date":"2025-10-29T10:48:52","excerpt":"In her Tallinn studio, Kristina Õllek was finalising a new installation for the group exhibition For All at Last Return, curated by Emma Dean and opening on 8 November 2025 at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (UK). October sunlight filtered through the windows, landing on a crucial element of the installation: a series of […]
\n","content":"\nIn her Tallinn studio, Kristina Õllek was finalising a new installation for the group exhibition For All at Last Return, curated by Emma Dean and opening on 8 November 2025 at the Baltic Centre for Contemporary Art (UK). October sunlight filtered through the windows, landing on a crucial element of the installation: a series of screen-like surfaces where sea salt, algae, bacteria, and other marine materials were growing, depositing, and transforming through natural processes. These hybrid interfaces, in which environmental matter produces its own forms of imaging, form the foundation of complex assemblages combining video, photography and sculptural elements.
\n\n\n\nOver the past five years since our last collaboration (Tiger in Space, EKKM, 2020, curated with Marten Esko and Lea Vene), Õllek’s artistic research on marine ecologies has evolved alongside the intensifying condition of climate breakdown, responding to human impact on the oceans with work that is both materially rigorous and conceptually expansive. This autumn, she is taking part in Down Deep. Living Seas, Living Bodies (State Art Gallery Sopot, Poland), curated by Joseph Constable, and just juuri nüüd nyt (Foku gallery, Tallinn), curated by Hertta Kiiski, among others, while she also prepares another newly commissioned work for Dulwich Picture Gallery next year (a duo show in London with Konrad Mägi in collaboration with Kumu Art Museum, curated by Kathleen Soriano), and a duo show with Tuomas A. Laitinen, curated by Anna Mustonen in 2027 in Finland.
\n\n\n\nAcross all these years, the sea has remained her constant and closest collaborator.
\n\n\n\nÕllek’s new work Breathing Deep Currency for the Baltic continues a trajectory that began with Nautilus New Era (2018), inspired by Jules Verne’s Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea (1870). In Verne’s story, Captain Nemo speaks of rich metal deposits on the ocean floor, suggesting that their extraction might one day be within reach. This proto-science-fiction fantasy has now become a tangible reality and a political, economic, and ethical issue of our time: deep-sea mining is promoted as a necessary step in the transition to renewable sources of energy, with rare-earth and other minerals such as manganese (a critical industrial metal for steel and battery production) deemed essential for renewable technologies. This promise reflects a Promethean belief in salvation through technology, even as we persist in the paradox of extracting and accumulating ever more. It comes at a devastating cost: the minerals may fuel the illusion of a sustainable future, but fragile ecosystems, seafloor habitats, and countless species are destroyed in the process. It is difficult to believe that any new technology could improve environmental conditions within a system that imposes no limits on growth and extraction on a finite planet. For now, the only certainty remains what it has always been: the expanding profits of the corporations involved.
\n\n\n\nWhile preparing her recent work, Õllek was in dialogue with marine scientists at the University of Newcastle, who study deep-sea ecologies. The encounter between scientists and artists is, in many ways, an encounter between different worldviews and methodologies: distinct ways of knowing, perceiving, and, above all, doing research. “Each scientist has a very deep knowledge of a very specific focus”, Õllek told me, “but they often avoid discussing broader implications. They’re careful not to express personal views”. Unlike scientific research, artistic research inhabits a state of perpetual becoming, where unexpected knowledge emerges through exploration, transformation, and speculative practice – always open, never fully complete. Õllek noted how scientific freedom is increasingly constrained by funding and private interests: “A senior scientist told me my work was inspiring because artists still have the freedom to explore ideas scientists can’t always pursue. Science once allowed more experimentation, but now funding and expectations direct it.”
\n\n\n\nAmong the discoveries that most struck Õllek was from a decade-long study by the Scottish Association for Marine Science, whose results were published in 2024, which revealed a second source of oxygen produced entirely without sunlight, on the deep ocean floors. ‘Dark Oxygen’ (a colloquial name) is generated by manganese nodules in complete darkness, and suggests that entire ecosystems may depend on non-photosynthetic oxygen production. This view radically challenges our assumptions about where and how life can exist, and thus potentially redefines the parameters for searching for it beyond our planet. Yet these findings often conflict with the interests of the mining companies funding such research. “When the scientists published their discovery” Õllek said, “the mining company tried to downplay the results as it could hinder extraction. The scientists had to stand against them, and also find another funding source to continue their research. It’s been concerning to learn that some researchers may even face pressure to remain silent or to expose only a partial result of their findings.”Õllek’s practice dwells in the tension between human extraction and the resilience of life, exploring the often-invisible processes that sustain oceanic ecosystems, and a deep awareness of how much remains unknown. Her works occupy these interstitial zones, where boundaries between organic and synthetic, human and non-human, scientific and fictional become porous. Nautilus New Era already reflected this tension, imagining the ocean as a techno-political landscape of both wonder and exhaustion. Her new body of work deepens that inquiry departing from the recent discovery of Dark Oxygen, asking how image-making can reveal what remains unseen, the invisible infrastructures and living processes that sustain the planet.
\n\n\n\nNautilus New Era was one of the pieces Daniela Arriado and I were happiest to include in the Screen City Biennial 2019, which we curated together in several venues in Stavanger. The city, both the heart of Norway’s oil industry and a magnet for cruise tourism, embodied the contradictions of extractive practices that Õllek’s work investigates. The work was installed in the cruise terminal, a glass building overlooking the North Sea, which seemed the perfect setting for a work in which the sea itself is both subject and context. We had planned carefully around ship arrivals and departures, but on the day of the opening, a massive cruise liner unexpectedly docked just outside, eclipsing the horizon and transforming the work’s relationship to the sea. Suddenly, the installation appeared dwarfed by the machinery of consumption it sought to question. We laughed at the irony because control in the public space is always provisional: the environment inevitably responds in unpredictable ways that we prefer to embrace than oppose.
\n\n\n\nWhen the ship finally departed, the horizon reopened and the work regained its line of sight to the water, as if breathing again. But that short moment revealed something essential about the conditions we inhabit, and that Õllek’s practice captures sharply: that we persist through cycles of pressure and release, through the pulse between obstruction and renewal, visibility and concealment, contraction and expansion. A continuous, inevitable rhythm, that is mirrored in the act of breathing itself.
\n\n\n\nVanina Saracino is an independent curator, film programmer, writer, and lecturer whose work explores the intersections of art and science, ecology, technology, experimental film and video, and art in the public space. Since 2021, she has taught at Berlin’s Universität der Künste and has spoken at numerous universities and cultural institutions. She has contributed to several books and catalogues, and holds degrees in Communication Sciences, Arts Management, and Art Theory.
\n","title":"Vanina Saracino"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0Mzcz","title":"Paul O’Neill: A rethinking of curatorial relations is necessary","slug":"paul-oneill-a-rethinking-of-curatorial-relations-is-necessary","uri":"/paul-oneill-a-rethinking-of-curatorial-relations-is-necessary/","date":"2025-10-29T10:47:43","excerpt":"During the first week of October this year, a four-day symposium on curating took place in Helsinki. Initiated by Paul O’Neill and PUBLICS, it was called Positioning. A Symposium on Curatorial Thinking in the Nordic-Baltic Region and Beyond. This year, the event was co-hosted with Amos Rex and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma; in the […]
\n","content":"\nDuring the first week of October this year, a four-day symposium on curating took place in Helsinki. Initiated by Paul O’Neill and PUBLICS, it was called Positioning. A Symposium on Curatorial Thinking in the Nordic-Baltic Region and Beyond. This year, the event was co-hosted with Amos Rex and Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma; in the upcoming years it will be happening elsewhere in the Nordic and Baltic countries. Bringing together an impressive list of curators both from the region and elsewhere, the symposium aimed to grasp the idea of what a curator’s role is today and how this can vary across countries, institutions and initiatives. We asked Paul O’Neill, the organiser and a researcher on curatorial thinking about his motivation behind bringing together a network of international curators.
\n\n\n\nThe aim is to establish a new nomadic centre for curatorial thinking – without a single main centre, or fixed location. Instead, it would be a centre that accounts for a cooperative decentring or recentring – one that is networked, unfixed, flexible and of regional significance while connecting to the breadth of knowledge here and beyond. This new Centre for Curatorial Thinking would focus on the significance of past and present thinking, knowledge and critiques within the practices of the curatorial.
\n\n\n\nThis symposium aims to start with positioninga globally networked enquiry into current and future curatorial thinking in the Nordic-Baltic region during a time of urgencies, and of radical uncertainty for culture and human rights. We come together to consider how we can think and work together, how to position ourselves with others, and how to bridge the local-regional-global curatorial nexus within and beyond the region. We aim to provide a critical space for much-needed dialogue between diverse local and regional actors, agencies, and international contemporary art scenes, and all our extraordinary curatorial thinkers across generational and geographical boundaries.
\n\n\n\nI think the Nordic-Baltic region needs more curatorial thinking, productive dialogues and cooperation across institutions and between differently located practices. There are already many geopolitical concerns and commonalities across the region.
\n\n\n\nThere is also considerable disbalance between institutional scales where there are a lot of large-scale museums, institutions and academic structures (albeit constantly under threat) without offering sufficient support for independent, co-dependent and smaller scale curatorial, emergent and organisational practices.
\n\n\n\nThere is a huge gap between those two scales without middle ground and medium-scale support structures to provide links between more grassroots and the top level and more stable infrastructures for curators, artists and cultural workers alike. Work needs to be done but without competing for the same agency, access or resources.
\n\n\n\nAt the same time, we have seen the emergence of curatorially-led, but relatively new modestly scaled biennials, triennials and regionally specific larger-scale exhibitions with global perspectives. These are happening simultaneously with even newer curatorial studies and nascent exhibition histories and programmes focusing on the region and its surrounding relations. With the Centre for Curatorial Thinking we wish to decentre the activities of publics from Helsinki into the regions, whilst expanding our activities and collaborations with institutions, curators and artists alike, offering opportunities and support for one another.
\n\n\n\nAfter more than 30 years of increasingly intense curatorial production and debate – considering the foundation of the first curatorial courses in the late 1980s and early 1990s as a starting point – one aspect within curatorial discourse is the continued contestation of the existence and legitimacy of a specifically curatorial field of praxis. It seems that we are experiencing an ongoing discursive cycle of consolidation around curatorial practice at an increasingly global level.
\n\n\n\nDuring a similar timeframe, all across the globe, we have increasingly witnessed an ever-aggressive and accelerating reaction to globalism in the form of rejection, xenophobia (even in form of multiple genocides), and anti-internationalism in the form of the march and success of the populist Right, and its preference for autocratic men with names like Erdoğan, Modi, Netanyahu, Orbán, Putin, and Trump. What these leaders and their followers share, among other things, is a disdain for the liberal and humanist values of contemporary art and its permissiveness. It is the ideology of global curatorial and contemporary art practices, its proposed value, and its economic support structure – globalisation, and thus its creation of surplus value – that are under direct attack. It should also be noted that their policies are a response to the economic effects of neoliberal deregulation and global trade in favour of protectionism and neo-nationalism.
\n\n\n\nSo by focusing on the differences and commonalities of forms and modes of curatorial thinking we can bring into focus where we are positioned and how we might come to know more, and to share and to offer opposition or modest modes of resistance. I like to think of positioning as situated knowledge, or simply as the practice of locating where someone or something is located or sited; how we are arranging ourselves or something in a particular way, how someone or something is placed or arranged; putting or arranging (someone or something) in a particular location or specific way. Taking up a position, taking a stance, and of positioning oneself with others as a means of informing art, curatorial, educational and institutional practices as much as they shape the world around us.
\n\n\n\nAdditionally, we need to consider how we position and with whom are we positioning ourselves, and to build and expand more productive collaborative and sustainable networks, partnerships and relationships across the region and beyond for the present and the future.
\n","featuredImageId":"cG9zdDo0Mzc3","featuredImage":{"node":{"id":"cG9zdDo0Mzc3","sourceUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-scaled.jpg","mediaItemUrl":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-scaled.jpg","srcLQIP":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-45x68.jpg","srcSet":"https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-scaled.jpg 1707w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-768x1152.jpg 768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-45x68.jpg 45w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/10/Peafoto_-Paul-O_Neill-speaking-at-Positioning.-Yelyzaveta-Babaieva-copy-525x788.jpg 525w","altText":"","caption":null,"title":"Peafoto_ Paul O_Neill speaking at Positioning. Yelyzaveta Babaieva copy","mediaDetails":{"width":1707,"height":2560}}},"categories":{"nodes":[{"slug":"commentary","name":"Commentary"}]},"terms":{"nodes":[{"name":"Practices in Dialogue","slug":"practices-in-dialogue","description":"October 2025","id":"dGVybTozMw==","issueFields":{"issueColor":"#c7d7bf","accentColor":"#4c4332","productUrl":null}}]},"articleAuthors":{"articleAuthors":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDoxMzY=","content":"\nKaarin Kivirähk is the editor-in-chief of A Shade Colder.
\n","title":"Kaarin Kivirähk"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDo0MjIw","title":"Your guide to exhibitions in Estonia and beyond for Autumn and Winter 2025/2026","slug":"your-guide-to-exhibitions-in-estonia-and-beyond-for-autumn-and-winter-2025-2026","uri":"/your-guide-to-exhibitions-in-estonia-and-beyond-for-autumn-and-winter-2025-2026/","date":"2025-10-29T10:47:13","excerpt":"TOP PICKS RECOMMENDED BEYOND
\n","content":"\nTimelines are often used as tools for (re)arranging narratives about the past and equally so for creating future projections. Compiling a timeline also means including certain events, people and perspectives, and excluding others. Sometimes projected timelines become disrupted or broken due to historical and/or personal events – how do we refocus and re-evaluate to regain […]
\n","content":"\nTimelines are often used as tools for (re)arranging narratives about the past and equally so for creating future projections. Compiling a timeline also means including certain events, people and perspectives, and excluding others. Sometimes projected timelines become disrupted or broken due to historical and/or personal events – how do we refocus and re-evaluate to regain our bearings? Sometimes, shifting timelines can seem like an impossible task but focusing alternative and parallel timelines can also create new knowledge, contributing towards a new future.
\n\n\n\nArt historical timelines are tricky – artists and works are attached to and detached from the dominant timeline, be it due to the changing political, social or cultural circumstances. Eha Komissarov, a curator at the Art Museum of Estonia discusses the changes she has witnessed during her 50-year career and the successes and failures of contributing to shaping art historical timelines. This issue of A Shade Colder opens up works by the Estonian printmaker Concordia Klar, whose Surrealism influenced works are increasingly being highlighted again and for the first time ever, her poems have now been translated into English.
\n\n\n\nAlongside more powerful narratives, parallel and supplemental timelines always also run. Sometimes we only notice these in hindsight, at first finding tiny specs of them in-between oppression and oblivion. Mari Vallikivi’s and Thomas Röske’s research into art created by non-professional and mentally ill artists exposes a variety of factors contributing to the side-lining of these practices, while Brigit Arop highlights how small initiatives weave themselves into the institutionalised art world.
\n\n\n\nMassive political and social disruptions that tear up everything on their way force people to rethink familiar timelines once used to orient themselves towards a future – a future that will now never happen. A Shade Colder dives into how the work of various art professionals has been altered since Russia launched their full-scale war against Ukraine. Aro Velmet looks at the material consequences that often come with a shift in thinking – the differences between the monument wars in the East and the West.
\n\n\n\nOn a path of uncertainty, we give alternative names to things that are unknown or too painful to speak of. We shift our thinking to another plane, a mythical timeline of metaphors and archetypes. Kaarin Kivirähk seeks out creatures born out of this imagination and traces their existence in the lesser-known border areas. The map of the monsters of Tallinn by Angela Maasalu and Jaak Juske lay outside historical, mythological and contemporary narratives that are deeply enmeshed in the psychological and physical space of the city.
\n\n\n\nIn an effort to contribute to envisioning more hopeful and safe future timelines, A Shade Colder will continue donating 50% of the proceeds of our sales to the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund.
\n\n\n\nKeiu Krikmann is the editor of A Shade Colder.
\n","title":"Keiu Krikmann"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNjIw","title":"Two Poems by Concordia Klar","slug":"two-poems-by-concordia-klar","uri":"/two-poems-by-concordia-klar/","date":"2023-05-11T13:02:13","excerpt":"Worry-strips on eyelashes,worry-strips on eyelashes. Crisscrossing fir rootsover a cascade of light,clover’s crossesover a work still to write. Frost molds discsin moments’ mute fall –it is not that, before whichsinks nightly a fiery ball. The path twisted and turned,rays scattered about,the aroma of decaying leaves. Time walks swiftly, spurred,holding our debt in its hands. Clouds […]
\n","content":"\nWorry-strips on eyelashes,
worry-strips on eyelashes.
Crisscrossing fir roots
over a cascade of light,
clover’s crosses
over a work still to write.
Frost molds discs
in moments’ mute fall –
it is not that, before which
sinks nightly a fiery ball.
The path twisted and turned,
rays scattered about,
the aroma of decaying leaves.
Time walks swiftly, spurred,
holding our debt in its hands.
Clouds remain, paths remain, you are gone.
Left is the ground, left are the flowers, but you are not.
Wind carries the dandelion tufts from blossomed yearnings.
I read it all in faces gazed upon – I reckon this must be freedom.
And from a simple person I turn into a detailed construction,
from maybe a single opportunity I sing with the wind in unison,
sinking as metal into concrete.
Brittle teeth crumble from the mouth of time.
Concordia Klar (1938–2004) was an Estonian printmaker. She graduated from the Estonian State Art Institute in 1963 and soon became interested in surrealist ideas. Klar’s visionary imagery often combines nature motifs and human figures – her series of women with musical instruments embodies harmony between the two. A lesser known fact is that Klar also wrote poetry and for this issue of A Shade Colder two of her poems from the 1970s have been translated to English for the first time.
\n","title":"Concordia Klar"}]},"contributors":[{"title":"Translated by","contributor":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzcx","content":"\nAdam Cullen is a poet and translator of Estonian prose, poetry, drama, and children’s literature into English. Originally from Minnesota, he is a member of the Estonian Writers’ Union and has resided in Estonia since 2007.
\n","title":"Adam Cullen"}]}}]}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxODI4","title":"Fight as much as you have strength for. Interview with Eha Komissarov","slug":"fight-as-much-as-you-have-strength-for-interview-with-eha-komissarov","uri":"/fight-as-much-as-you-have-strength-for-interview-with-eha-komissarov/","date":"2023-05-11T13:00:53","excerpt":"Eha Komissarov is one of the mother figures of contemporary Estonian art – a legendary curator and critic, celebrating her 50-year anniversary of working at the Art Museum of Estonia. She started at the museum in the beginning of the 1970s. This was a decade, when the local art field was slowly becoming more diverse […]
\n","content":"\nEha Komissarov is one of the mother figures of contemporary Estonian art – a legendary curator and critic, celebrating her 50-year anniversary of working at the Art Museum of Estonia. She started at the museum in the beginning of the 1970s. This was a decade, when the local art field was slowly becoming more diverse after Khrushchev’s Thaw. Since then, art and the world in general have radically changed – the fall of the Soviet Union and re-establishing Estonia’s independence in 1991 brought a complete re-conceptualisation of art and the art world as well as rapid changes in society, orienting itself toward capitalism.
\n\n\n\nAlthough at the forefront of changes in contemporary art, Komissarov has always worked with historical material as well, putting it into a contemporary perspective. Passionately, tirelessly and without compromise, she has followed the enormous social changes of the last 50 years, always critically addressing these through means of visual culture and her curatorial practice. Komissarov has always attempted to place the local heritage and processes in a wider context, to relate it to changes taking place internationally. Together with Maria Arusoo and Eda Tuulberg, she is working on a curatorial project titled Through the Black Gorge of Your Eyes, which offers a contemporary perspective on the work of Estonian women printmakers in the 1960s and 1980s and invites contemporary performance artists to enter into a dialogue with the themes highlighted by the printmakers of the Soviet era.
\n\n\n\nMaria Arusoo: Could you describe what the art field was like when you were at university and after graduating in the early 1970s?
Eha Komissarov: At the time, art was very exciting. The Estonian art field was striving towards freedom and trying to find its place in Europe. It was trying to find a way to wriggle away from Russian influence. When it came to culture, there were two main cities – Tartu and Tallinn. I went to the University of Tartu and at the time, Tartu was valued because artists were trying to revive the painting tradition of the Pallas Higher Arts School that had existed before the Soviet occupation. In Tallinn, however, tradition took a backseat, and they were trying to invent something new. I also remember that there was a ferry line1Although the distance between Tallinn and Helsinki is only 80 km, there was no regular ferry line between the cities from 1939 to 1965. between Tallinn and Helsinki, which meant that at certain times, the city was full of people, who looked and acted very differently from locals. My school was located in Tallinn city centre, just near Kaarli church and the Finnish hippies loved to sit and drink champagne on the church’s stairs. So I was in high school when I first encountered flower children. In wild miniskirts, flowers in their hair, holding champagne bottles, sitting and drinking there. People like that. And with long hair. In Estonia, too, little by little, you could see more boys with long hair. So perhaps the rest of the world reached Tallinn more visibly than it did Tartu. Still, at the University of Tartu, significant intellectual and spiritual developments were underway. In search of freedom, people were looking towards the East – ex oriente lux. They were developing the New Age discourse. So all these minds were turning towards Buddhism and Eastern thought for clarity, to a more tolerant way of seeing the world, to mysticism. Because the imperialist culture of the Soviet Union was completely devoid of any kind of mysticism.
MA: How did you come to art, what decisions led you to that?
EK: It was a pure coincidence. When I was a student (late 1960s and early 1970s) the trajectory of possibilities for studying was very clearly defined. I was fascinated by history, but that was also a time when parts of history were banned and you could only use certain keywords to talk about things. There were many themes that were never touched upon when it came to the post-war period. Not that they were always necessarily forbidden but you needed permission to work in the archive and common people were not given access. Art history was taught as a minor and I liked it a lot.
Eda Tuulberg: What inspired you the most in culture at the time?
EK: Personally, I was the most fascinated by pop culture and all the changes it was going through – the new language and how a new vocabulary and code appeared in culture, society and people’s behaviour. I loved that certain borders were dissolved. Soviet society was so institutional. But suddenly, all the young professors began addressing the students in a more casual way and even the rector of the university could be spoken to less formally. The change of code in behaviour was so exciting and so different from everything that had come before. To be honest, it was thrilling to see all the old values go to hell.
MA: What was your relationship to the programmatic Soviet emancipation that brandished equality of women and men?
EK: In society, most things were decided by men who were often remarkably dumber and more limited than the women for whom they made decisions. I became more consciously aware of that in the early 1970s. It was very easy for me to relate to traditional feminism when I looked at the choices available to women in Estonian society. Soviet society was a welfare society in the sense that nobody could get rich but also nobody starved, unless you suffered from direct repressions by the state, of course. The social transition of the 1990s in Estonia also presented a lot of people with tough choices. I was shocked to see children beg on the streets in groups and how prostitution became very clearly visible. I had no illusions about capitalism. I knew people were going to be out of jobs. And I knew competing would become the norm. That much I had understood as an observer. And so, I found some support in feminist ideas that helped me to address and make sense of all the social changes.
MA: In Estonia, you are known as someone who tirelessly introduces and advocates for contemporary art. What was initially so fascinating about contemporary art for you?
EK: I was interested in contemporary art because it was extremely difficult to get access to it during the Soviet period… Thinking of the Estonian art field at the time – you definitely had to know an artist personally to even see that kind of art. As a person, I am kind of an unorganised character. I really loved the post-war international art history. I truly loved abstract art, which was forbidden in the Soviet Union because of the Cold War. You could only see very little. At some point, dictionaries of art published in Germany became available in Estonia as well and many significant names of contemporary artists were included. Sometimes, we could get our hands on these, they cost next to nothing. The more hidden a culture, the more people are drawn to it. When everything is spoon-fed, it’s less effective. That’s what Finnish artists always said when they visited Estonia. They claimed that a society can’t have too much freedom, it always needs some kind of resistance. Citizens must feel that they need to fight and resist through their art, that gives a new meaning to the work. I didn’t like that – it felt like since Finland was free, it was easy for them to come here and discuss how we needed to suffer and be a little repressed. When I confronted them about this, they replied that no-no, it’s just good for any culture to have a bit of conflict and pressure.
ET: When you started working at the museum, you had to work with historic material; however, as a critic you wrote about contemporary developments in art as well. How did you manage these roles? Did you feel there was a conflict between them? It seems you were almost like a chameleon.
EK: I mean, a true Soviet citizen always had many roles. Party member, executive employee, a career person, a nationalist crying under the Christmas tree.2As a religious holiday, celebrating Christmas was forbidden in the Soviet Union. There were numerous roles a person had to play; it was a complicated society. It wasn’t easy. I am extremely grateful, of course, because working with historical materials taught me to look at traditional art. In some ways, effort was put into our education – once a year, we were sent to Leningrad to see exhibitions. Once, there was a big exhibition of the Golden Age of Finnish art at the Hermitage. To me, that was a complete shock when it came to exhibition design – they had spotlights on each of the paintings. Imagine that! Dark Hermitage exhibition hall and reflective mirrors and spotlights on paintings. Today, spotlights are not used to light paintings anymore but at the time this was a new and impressive practice. The way it made a painting and the space look! So my most memorable exhibition experience was, in fact, at the Hermitage.
MA: Did you feel you could realise your ambitions within that system?
EK: I didn’t really think about my ambitions, I was more working on developing myself. I realised I didn’t know anything, so I read a lot. Thanks to the samizdat3Samizdat refers to literature that was not allowed in the Soviet Union, but which was reproduced often by hand and shared and distributed through unofficial underground channels. experience, I began reading books in Russian, since a lot more interesting literature was published in Russian. Not only about art but also world literature. I read and tried to educate myself. Finnish television was also an important source of information.4As Finnish TV broadcasts made their way across the Gulf of Finland, the Finnish television could be illegally watched in the northern parts of Estonia.
MA: On the one hand, you seem to be extremely curious. You read and swallow large amounts of information, you keenly observe the world around you, you are knowledgeable and sensitive and easily pick things up. Yet, even in your early 20s you never fell under the spell of gurus, as it sometimes happens to people.
EK: My ideal was always anarchism at the time. Often people do not intend to become gurus – they just have a message to spread and people start gathering around them. Some of the local art gurus radiated a completely new kind of thinking, things I had never even dreamt of. I wasn’t working with any super exciting esoteric teachings or life changing issues because as an anarchist and democrat, I think that every person has to find themselves based on their own experiences. To an extent it’s also about fate. I have seen people who have a terrible fate, who die precisely when it would be so important for them to live.
ET: It’s quite interesting that you consider yourself an anarchist but at the same time you’ve worked in a museum for 50 years. Has this been a pragmatic decision or is there something in the institution of the museum you strongly believe in?
EK: I had a certain interest, a purely creative interest in the museum. When you work intensely and seriously with contemporary art, you will gain a new perspective on art history. Especially when it came to our local history, where everything was so restrained and adorned with myths of the spirit of Parisian art. I did not care about any of these myths. I was the generation who thought: “Paris is dead, long live New York!” I had been to Paris but not New York. It’s really easy to make decisions like that! But I knew that I had a completely new perspective on art history, and I wanted to put it to work.
ET: When did that become possible for you?
EK: In the mid-1990s, when decisions about the new building for the Art Museum of Estonia (now Kumu – Ed.) began, this is when I started to think about it.
ET: How do you see the role of museums today? Or the role of museum curators?
EK: I like what the Estonian philosopher Eik Herman said about museums: museums are filled with collections, but now a time has come, where these collections need to prove their right to exist in a new, contemporary culture. I have always had an ambivalent role. I have always championed the new and at the same time, in the museum, I am personally involved with many collections – I have helped to establish them, I have made recommendations and acquired works. And now I suddenly have to be the defender of these shabby collections – at the onslaught of art that is being made in increasingly better conditions. Maybe I’m stepping into inappropriate territory here, but Herman’s idea really spoke to me. And when Covid came, so many of our exhibitions were postponed, which meant we needed to take a closer look again at the works we already had in the museum. So, we once again discovered that we have so much art, yet only a tiny portion of that circles in the public and most of it remains uninterpreted in the context of contemporary culture. We have abandoned it, left it to just sit there.
MA: Talking about the upheaval and the arrival of contemporary art in Estonia in the 1990s, how much do you see yourself responsible for that? Here, you had the choice to either start copying the West or to blend it with our own tradition and create a new model.
EK: In order to blend things you need the other half.
MA: How consciously did you participate in this?
EK: I participated in a very radical manner, I felt that it was the time to cut the umbilical cord, take a strong turn and find a new focus, new energy, to be able to have a dialogue with the current moment. I brought artists to Estonia, who were doing important work at the time and also selected the more independent Estonian artists. Estonian art took a long time to get used to independence. It was as if everyone was always waiting to be told what to do. And finally it happened – the whole Soros system in the 1990s. I have read extremely critical opinions that the network of Soros centres was a network of Western colonialism, based on an imperialist idea. I don’t quite agree. Estonia is a stronghold of its national culture, we stick together. The idea that people need to work together and support each other is really good in practice and there have been times, like the Art Nouveau period, for example, where art favoured these little groupings. But when the idea of national culture was thrown out, everything became very dramatic. Estonian artists didn’t really go along with the idea that they needed to push everything they had known aside and suddenly start deconstructing art.
ET: Do you agree that in this case the baby was thrown out with bathwater – certain people and phenomena were pushed aside? In some ways the exhibition of women printmakers we are working on now sets out to revise women printmakers as a phenomenon in Soviet art history. In the 1990s, they, too, were overshadowed by all the new developments in contemporary art.
EK: In the past, there have been periods, where these artists have been highlighted and valued. For example, this has to do with how Estonian art silently resisted Soviet Socialist Realism. I’m probably romanticising my youth, but I consider this a great achievement and I am truly sorry that our culture can no longer read these codes. In the 1990s, artists were suddenly all like, “Oh, sure, some art was made in the past but THEN I ARRIVED and showed everyone my ass! I screamed, broke stuff, ran around! Look what I did!” I was always against all such extremities. Everyone like this was given a platform. The wilder you were, the better it was. In the 90s, I did think about how to approach the work of women printmakers in a contemporary context. I knew these artists; they had had a massive influence on my professional development as well. I was wondering how to save them. And then I realised it was they who needed to take the first step and break out of their system. But they almost never did. What I mean by this – you step outside of your conventional modus operandi and try to approach the world in a completely new way.
MA: But do you not think this also depends on a person’s character? There are artists who reinvent their work each decade, they go along with the changing times and then there are artists who keep with their idiosyncratic line of work, while times around them change and at some point their ideas become relevant again. Why was it important for you to return to the works of women printmakers of the Soviet period now, at this particular moment in time?
EK: Absolutely. I love how during the period Kumu Art Museum was under construction, internet radicals were discussing how museums are a relic, everything needs to be put online and there is no need for expensive buildings. To that my colleague of many years, art historian Mai Levin very cleverly said: “Well, life has shown that in a museum, none of the artworks in collections are pointless and useless. Time moves forward and there is something for each new era, the ‘pointless’ work becomes relevant again. And everyone admires it.” So that is the phenomenon of the museum.
I think it is not too late for these women printmakers, as their work highlights certain keywords that are still very much alive in Estonian historical memory, that can still touch people. For example, the pursuit of aesthetic harmony, search for female expression, the need to create symbols, goodness, empathy, ideas like that. I would like to interpret these in such a way that young people today, who are so removed from the time these works were created and who are not interested in creating specifically Estonian art, would understand that this is what our art history is like, that these are the works that were created during difficult times. There were women who came and wanted to do something, and they did it! I want to interpret these works in a way that they would start making sense in a contemporary context again.
MA: You are a very hands-on curator. Whenever I think about you and the exhibitions you have curated, I remember you in dusty clothes putting finishing touches on things, putting up labels for artworks etc.
EK: Well, in the 1990s, we didn’t have cleaners at Soolaladu, the contemporary art space of the Art Museum of Estonia. Can you imagine? We had to install whole exhibitions but the cleaner only came on the day of the opening. So, I often stayed there until 3 am. When we were done with installing, we needed to clean up the sawdust. We didn’t have a vacuum cleaner either. I used brooms to sweep the space. And only then I could go home because I couldn’t leave a mess for the next day, everything needed to be clean. Such were the conditions.
ET: What are curators’ options and obligations at a time where public intellectual space is increasingly hijacked by right-wing conservatives, the climate crisis, Russia’s horrific actions in Ukraine, and Covid also still lurking in the background?
EK: Fight as much as you have strength for, but tackle these issues one at a time. And when you run out of steam, think of something else. But I think that the combination of all of these factors will lead to the rise of national narratives. In relation to the war in Ukraine in particular. Not because the conservative right decided so. I see signs that a certain kind of romantic spirit is being revived. Cynicism has run its course, it is depleted, there is nowhere else to go from here. Empathy will be more valued again and I don’t think this means focusing on the situation of nations in a narrow sense but there will be another, wider perspective on the whole world. I would like to hope so. For something more empathic.
Eda Tuulberg is an art historian based in Tallinn, Estonia. She is a curator at the Kumu Art Museum and doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her field of research is Soviet and contemporary art, with a focus on the work of women artists and the problematics of gender issues. She is currently working on a research and curatorial project exploring the legacy of late Soviet Estonian women printmakers.
\n","title":"Eda Tuulberg"},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzg2","content":"\nMaria Arusoo is an Estonian curator and dramaturg. She is interested in performative practices and socially engaged art. Since 2013, Arusoo has been working as the Director of the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art and the Commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She is also part of the curatorial team for the 2023 Sequences real time art festival that takes place in Reykjavik.
\n","title":"Maria Arusoo"}]},"contributors":[{"title":"Photography by","contributor":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzc3","content":"\nEdith Karlson is a freelance artist who has persevered in this position for 30 years. She plans to stay the course.
\n","title":"Edith Karlson"}]}},{"title":"Photography by","contributor":{"nodes":[{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzgw","content":"\nJohanna Ulfsak is a designer and artist mainly working with traditional textile techniques. She also likes to make nice projects and to have fun on Photoshop. She is a long-time friend of Edith Karlson.
\n","title":"Johanna Ulfsak"}]}}]}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxODM0","title":"A Strange Decolonisation – Monument Wars in the Baltics","slug":"a-strange-decolonisation-monument-wars-in-the-baltics","uri":"/a-strange-decolonisation-monument-wars-in-the-baltics/","date":"2023-05-11T13:00:20","excerpt":"Western observers may have experienced the latest iteration of the monument wars in the Baltics with some cognitive dissonance. In the anglophone world, popular movements such as Black Lives Matter have demanded the decolonisation of public spaces. The British coloniser Cecil Rhodes, confederate general Robert E. Lee, even Theodore Roosevelt are no longer welcome in […]
\n","content":"\nWestern observers may have experienced the latest iteration of the monument wars in the Baltics with some cognitive dissonance. In the anglophone world, popular movements such as Black Lives Matter have demanded the decolonisation of public spaces. The British coloniser Cecil Rhodes, confederate general Robert E. Lee, even Theodore Roosevelt are no longer welcome in polite company. Owing to public pressure, universities have renamed buildings, and museums have been recontextualising their collections.
\n\n\n\nMonuments are also falling in the Baltics, spurred by the war in Ukraine and responding to Vladimir Putin’s propagandistic use of the past to justify his invasion. Last year, Latvian authorities dismantled a massive World War II memorial in the capital Riga, where ethnic Russians had been gathering every year on 9 May to commemorate the end of the war. In Estonia, the government removed a Soviet tank memorial from the border town of Narva, citing security concerns. All three Baltic countries have passed laws mandating the removal of Soviet war memorials, war graves and occupation-era symbols from buildings.
\n\n\n\nYet these decisions have been met with strong public opposition, particularly from historians, art historians and conservators. If the removal of confederate and colonialist statues in the West has been interpreted as a democratisation of public space and an exorcism of the legacy of white supremacy, then in the Baltics, critics of the monument wars have called the dismantling of Soviet memorials undemocratic. By forming secret committees, working according to an accelerated schedule, and refusing to respond to critics, art historian Linda Kaljundi argues that Baltic governments are silencing public debate – “the worst approach, given the emotional intensity and polarising nature of the issue”. Instead she suggests cultivating a pedagogical approach to Soviet era monuments, to use them to “work through” difficult historical periods, and “to understand how different communities can and do have different interpretations of the past”.
\n\n\n\nIndeed, although the term “decolonisation” is also invoked here, the monument wars in the Baltics differ from their Western counterparts in several key respects. First, they are only the latest wave in a process that goes back to the 1990s. Statues of Lenin, Stalin, and local communist leaders might be found in Lithuania’s Grūto parkas or in Estonia’s Vabamu museum, but not on public squares because they were taken down in the early 1990s, when the Baltics regained their independence. The current wave of dismantling is therefore not oriented towards hot and controversial symbols of the occupation period, but towards smaller war memorials and graves that have often been forgotten, or architectural details, such as murals or hammer-and-sickle symbols on the facades of buildings such as Tallinn’s Sõprus cinema.
\n\n\n\nSecond, the list of targeted monuments is much more extensive than in the US or the UK. In Estonia, a government study from 2022 listed a total of 322 Soviet monuments still remaining in the country and ruled that 244 of them should be removed. This included 133 war graves, which require reburials. For comparison, a Southern Poverty Law Center study from 2020 found that 168 Confederate symbols had been removed in the US with more than 2,100 remaining. In the Baltics, the loss of pedagogical potential in the built environment is a real danger, while in the US, the situation is quite the opposite: symbols with colonialist or white supremacist history tend to dominate public spaces, overwhelming an admittedly increasing number of monuments that celebrate Black and Indigenous culture.
\n\n\n\nThird, the role these remaining Soviet monuments play in the contemporary Baltic context is also quite different. We should recall that the movement to remove Confederate statues in the US did not spring from nowhere, rather, they were responding to an upsurge of white supremacist violence, notably the Charleston church shooting in 2015 and the Unite the Right rally of 2017. Indeed, as the American Historical Association noted in its statement at the time, most Confederate statues were never put up as memorials to the Civil War, but instead were erected decades later, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, and were explicitly designed to intimidate Black Americans during the period of post-Reconstruction backlash.
\n\n\n\nThe legacy of the remaining Soviet monuments is complicated in a different way. On the one hand, Putin’s regime is clearly using the narrative of the Great Patriotic War to drum up support for the war in Ukraine, an ‘anti-fascist’ operation, as Russia would have it. On the other hand, many of the monuments in question are active as war memorials for the Russian minority population, who gather there to commemorate fallen family members, celebrate the end of the war on 9 May, or take pictures during family events, such as weddings.
\n\n\n\nCritics have pointed out that machines of destruction in public spaces create unsavoury associations in an era of Russian aggression. Yet, using tanks as war memorials, as was the case in Narva, is by no means an uncommon practice. Memorials of British Churchill and US Sherman tanks are found all over the coastline of Normandy, and Soviet tank memorials are not uncommon (nor uncontroversial) in East Germany or Poland. Other memorials are complicated by the fact that they have been designed by local architects and sculptors, and have, over time, lost their association with the Soviet period. The expansive complex at Maarjamäe in Tallinn, for instance, is more likely to be identified as one location used for shooting the film Tenet than a Soviet memorial to World War II. In any case, the memory politics of the Baltic memorials resist a single interpretation.
\n\n\n\nFinally, while the removal of statues of Soviet leaders in 1991 enjoyed broad popular support, it is not clear that there is a large constituency that is actively bothered by the remaining monuments today. Indeed, public opinion polls show either indifference or support for the monuments. In Estonia, 43% of Estonian speaking respondents said that Soviet era monuments “had no meaning for them”, while 16% said they evoke “negative feelings and memories”. Often, local communities have voiced support for the monuments. The removal of the T-34 tank in the predominantly Russian-speaking town of Narva was accompanied by peaceful gatherings. A Soviet war memorial, Kivi-Jüri, in the Estonian island town of Kärdla, was taken to a military museum, even as local leaders called for caution and debate.
\n\n\n\nBy and large, the campaign to remove Soviet symbols has been led by conservative politicians, who are not unfairly accused of drumming up nationalism in advance of the election season. Rather than being powered by grassroots initiatives, like the anticolonial and antislavery campaigns in the US and the UK, the monument removals in the Baltics are organised by the central government, often cloaked in secrecy. In Estonia, the list of Soviet monuments to be dismantled was drawn up by a secret committee, and the government was given the right, in spite of protests by various professional societies, to overrule the decisions of local municipalities and heritage boards.
\n\n\n\nThe removals are now underway, having drawn more attention to the monuments than if they had been simply left alone. The monument wars have been discussed at academic conferences and on TV talk shows, and have certainly offered many ‘pedagogical opportunities’ for discussing the intersection of politics, memory and history. It remains to be seen if the loss of material heritage has been worth the payoff.
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\n","title":"Aro Velmet"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNTc5","title":"Timelines in Transit. Where Do We Go from Here?","slug":"timelines-in-transit-where-do-we-go-from-here","uri":"/timelines-in-transit-where-do-we-go-from-here/","date":"2023-05-11T13:01:06","excerpt":"On 24 February, Estonia celebrates its day of independence, so in the morning of this public holiday in 2022, I opened my iPhone, expecting to find a boring festive news stream about the President’s speech and galleries with images of the traditional raising of the flag at sunrise. Instead, in shock, I stared at the […]
\n","content":"\nOn 24 February, Estonia celebrates its day of independence, so in the morning of this public holiday in 2022, I opened my iPhone, expecting to find a boring festive news stream about the President’s speech and galleries with images of the traditional raising of the flag at sunrise. Instead, in shock, I stared at the news of the Russian army invading Ukraine and explosions in Kyiv. I believe that the meaning of this otherwise standardised national holiday probably shifted radically for most Estonians. However, in the following days, weeks and, by now, a whole year, the question of how to go on with our daily and professional lives, how to make artworks, curate shows, write art criticism as we are witnessing horrific events became very relevant.
\n\n\n\nSo I asked curators and artists from Estonia, Latvia, Ukraine, Poland, Finland, Norway and the USA to reflect on how they have dealt with the same questions: How has the full-scale Russian invasion of Ukraine changed their ways of working and thinking, both in the practical and theoretical sense? How has the (art)world changed?
\n\n\n\nZhanna Kadyrova is a Ukrainian artist who has participated in numerous international exhibitions, including the 58th, 56th (international exhibition) and 55th (Ukrainian Pavilion) Venice Biennales, and the 2017 Kyiv Biennale. In 2022, she started the project Palianytsia as both an art and fundraising project.
On 24 February, I was in my home in Kyiv when I woke to the sound of bombing. My brain – the brain of a person raised in a civilised world – blocked me from fully understanding what was happening and kept playing tricks on me. We thought it would all end tomorrow, the following day, we thought it would end the day after, then on 1 March, on 8 March, in summer, before the New Year. Now I am trying to adapt to the information available and understand that it will not end soon, the consequences will be horrifying and the trauma incredibly deep-rooted. And nothing will ever be the same.
\n\n\n\nIn the second week of the war, our whole family decided to leave Kyiv. My sister took our parents with her to Germany, and it was only after that that I started to look for a new place to live and a new job. Having ended up in the Zakarpattia oblast, it took me five days to find a place – around six million internally displaced people from the eastern and northern parts of the country had moved to western Ukraine. I could think about art again only after my mother had safely reached Germany. Before that, art seemed like an ephemeral formation of the civilised world, something of an illusion and not relevant in the context of the war tearing apart the lives and fates of thousands of people. I remember how at that moment my creative life of 20 years seemed like a dream.
\n\n\n\nBut a new life needed to begin and in this life benefiting those who are suffering and the army that protects us must be the priority. I wanted to come up with something I could make with minimal means, without a studio and sell online. This is how the project Паляниця was born (palianytsia is a type of Ukrainian bread) and so far, we have managed to raise over 200,000 euros for the army and the victims of the war. Necessary items are bought by my friends, who have become volunteers and soldiers; visiting the war zone was a completely new experience for me. Transporting cars to the front line, we reached the places the army is located, which are off-limits to civilians.
\n\n\n\nSeveral of my 2022 projects were created in connection to these trips. I put all the projects and exhibitions I had planned before the war on hold, except for those where the curators were willing to change the theme of the project to reflect the urgency I was now dealing with. In addition, my gallery Continua announced a moratorium on the sales of works that do not relate to the current situation in Ukraine. I consider it my mission to disseminate information about what is happening, as I am a witness to these events.
\n\n\n\nGenerally, it is difficult to make plans and I find it hard to distance myself from the situation and start theorising about it, since the war is still being waged and I am in Kyiv.
\n\n\n\nTanel Rander is an artist, curator and art writer from Estonia, who has dealt with Eastern European identity and decoloniality for years. At the moment, he is focusing on unlearning all of this and while not abandoning all of his past practice, he is now interested issues of mental health and individuation.
Regarding the art world, there is a kind of renaissance taking place in Ukraine and in the Ukrainian diaspora. The war has awakened archetypes in the collective consciousness of Europe. There is no better example of it than the works of the artist Kateryna Lysovenko.
\n\n\n\nAlso, there is the great wash-off of everything that we used to know as Eastern Europe. The term now evokes being stuck in the past and holding too much encrypted and latent Russian imperialism that suddenly has become a weapon. I’m glad I never bought the idea of ‘the New East’ – I only ever saw it as form without content, based on the fetishisation of Soviet culture, especially its darker side. I also now believe that the ‘decolonial turn’, the one that departed from the Global South and involved anti-Western sentiment, was either influenced by Russian soft power or just instrumentalised and weaponised by its propaganda. When the war started, I was really shocked to see certain authors I had followed and respected, acting like Russian trolls. After all, the movement of decoloniality always included heavy anti-Western sentiment, self-victimisation and preaching the emergence of the BRICS countries. Around ten years ago that was all very compelling and catchy.
\n\n\n\nNow, the war launched me into a personal crisis of self-blame. I started to think that by having worked with East European identity and decoloniality for years, I was one among thousands, who were gentrifying an evil and cynical project of a few dictators. Who would have thought that my worst fears about Russia were going to come true?! Until then, I had been freely playing and joking around about Russian issues and its leaders, I had been openly nostalgic about my childhood in the Soviet era, I had been talking about the acceptance of our life, culture and history under occupation. It was all based on a kind of trust and feeling of safety that makes freedom possible. But that trust was abused. And self-blame is the consequence of abuse. It is the feeling of contamination that makes you want to vomit out everything relating to the abuser. Starting with Dostoevsky. Millions of people are going through this – feeling contaminated. It may seem like destruction, perhaps also self-destruction, but I believe that things will be sorted out and this may lead to a serious decolonisation of Russian imperialism. A huge constellation has broken down. It is not just about Russia, it is also about us, about Europe, etc. Especially now it is unwise and dangerous to keep calling ourselves Eastern Europe or the New East. Everybody knows who is playing the East-West game. But not everybody knows that we are the New West. Anyway, I hope to see the day when ‘geopolitics’ is added to the list of ideological crimes.
\n\n\n\nSebastian Cichocki is the Chief Curator at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw. He is the curator of the 40th EVA International – Ireland’s Biennial of Contemporary Art, 2023.
In the recent past, I was involved in many discussions and public programmes, analysing the legacy of ‘solidarity museums’, these rare and precious moments when art institutions become something else: a hospital, food bank, playground, refugee centre. Think about Malmö Konstmuseum, which in 1945 opened its doors to women from liberated concentration camps, who slept, cooked, and even did art therapy there. When the Russian invasion started in Ukraine – my young climate activist friends immediately labelled it as “the first global fossil-fuel-fascist war” – all these lessons from the past had to be taken seriously. But such an institutional metamorphosis cannot always be planned and calculated in advance.
\n\n\n\nThe Sunflower, the Ukrainian solidarity cultural centre at the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, was indeed born quite organically. It was a safe but rebellious space, a harbour for refugees, queer kids, families with their pets (dogs, cats, parrots and hamsters were also looking for a refuge) and feminist antifa comrades. The Sunflower, initiated by a group of Ukrainian artists and poets called Blyzkist, collected funds for food, medical and hygiene products, electricity generators, as well as working with Warsaw collectives employing migrants and refugees, such as the Conflict Kitchen and Right Food. It wasn’t an art project but a rapture in institutional life. Not a public programme, but a gentle occupation. It might’ve been the climax of my art worker’s life – dancing, reading and writing poems, eating, crying, and being in this shit together.
\n\n\n\nNeal Cahoon is a Northern Irish writer and curator based in Kirkenes, Norway. He has been leading the curatorial team at Pikene på Broen since May 2020.
There has been a fundamental change, not only in how the work of the collective Pikene på Broen is received in the art world, but also how our work takes place in Kirkenes. We are located 50 km from the Finnish Border, and 10 km from the Russian border. We live and work within Sápmi, the indigenous land of this region, in the Paaččjok sijjd, which is the rightful territory of the Skolt Sámi community.
\n\n\n\nPikene has been working with collaborating partners in the cultural field on the Russian side of the border since 1996, and some of our core principles have been to promote dialogue, understanding, and freedom of expression through art. There have also been challenges in the past with this type of cross-border work, but the timing of the invasion in 2022 was particularly striking because it took place the day after we opened the festival Barents Spektakel and these events had a very strong effect on the entire programme. Our theme last year was Where Do We Go from Here? which suddenly gained a new context.
\n\n\n\nAfter the war broke out, there was a lot of discussion and action in Norway and other European countries about cultural boycotts of Russian art and artists, which was justified in some cases. But through our close dialogue with our collaborating partners, it was clear that the picture was much more nuanced and complex, and as a cultural organisation we felt it was important to support independent and pro-democratic voices in Russia, as well as sending a strong message condemning the war in Ukraine. Pikene now maintains contact only with independent cultural actors from the Barents region in Russia, many of whom have now fled the country.
One example was the attention we received through one project during the finissage of the last festival. Two Sides of the River was imagined by artists Tine Surel Lange and Pavlo Grazhdanskij as a gesture of analogue communication in an age of pandemic travel restrictions. The artists aimed to send real-life sound signals to each other across the border in the Pasvik valley. However, just one hour before the performance was due to take place, Grazhdanskij got the message from authorities in Nikel (Russia) that his permission to perform had been revoked due to the risk of a ‘snow storm’. On the Norwegian side, at 15:30, Tine Surel Lange stuck to the timeline, shifting between moments when she could send signals of a sampled foghorn from Lofoten across the border, and moments spent waiting in silence for a reply that she knew would never come. On the Russian side, the signals were heard by a small audience who had gathered to witness the work, and who also tried in vain to shout back in response. Although only 10 km away, on this occasion the distance was too great for the human voice.
Dieter Roelstraete is the curator at Neubauer Collegium for Culture and Society at the University of Chicago. He previously served on the curatorial team that organized documenta 14 in Kassel, Germany, and Athens, Greece. Recent projects include exhibitions at the Fondazione Prada in Milan and Venice, the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, and the Garage Museum for Contemporary Art in Moscow. Roelstraete, who was trained as a philosopher at the University of Ghent, has published extensively on contemporary art and related philosophical issues.
There is no denying that the (art) world has changed dramatically since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on 24 February 2022 – for the worse. Speaking as someone who long thought of himself as an incurable Russophile – and who, in that capacity, has travelled and worked in Russia on numerous occasions, in places as far apart as Moscow and Vladivostok, the Chelyabinsk Oblast and Ulan-Ude – the war has achieved the previously inconceivable effect of completely obliterating my enthusiasm for anything Russian. I haven’t read a Russian book in a year; I haven’t listened to any Russian music in a year; I haven’t watched a Russian movie in a year; I haven’t seriously looked at Russian art in a year – and I honestly don’t think I’ll ever go back to Russia either. (I don’t want to.) I have, in short, been cured of this seemingly incurable Russophilia. (And it’s not like I’ve become more pronouncedly Ukrainophile in the process.) This may sound like a petty personal anecdote but it isn’t – the Russian invasion of Ukraine has basically robbed the world of a vast realm of cultural possibilities, and the world is a much poorer place because of it. PUTIN MUST GO.
\n\n\n\nSolvita Krese lives in Riga and is a curator and director of the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art (LCCA) since 2000. She has been curator and co-curator of number of large-scale international exhibitions, among these the Latvian Pavilion at the 59th Venice Biennale (2022). In 2009, she initiated the annual Contemporary Art Festival Survival Kit, which she curated and co-curated until 2019.
I assume that for many people in the Baltic region, their understanding of the world and their value system was shaken to the foundations on the morning of 24 February 2022. The war in Ukraine has fundamentally changed our worldview and has also had a significant impact on the art world.
\n\n\n\nWhen the war started, we at the Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art radically transformed our programme in response to the events in Ukraine. For example, in the exhibition space of the Museum of Medicine, opposite the Russian Embassy and the main protest site, we launched the Protest Workshop. There, together with artists and inhabitants and guests of Riga, we prepared posters and other visual materials for the protesters every day.
\n\n\n\nThe war in Ukraine and the issues it raised were interwoven in all our projects throughout the year. It was present in the numerous webinars on decolonisation, where Ukrainian artists, curators and researchers were invited to participate. At the festival Survival Kit we created a special programme for Ukrainian refugees, The Hearing Voices Café, in collaboration with artist Dora Garcia. In the exhibition Decolonial Ecologies, a video by Ukrainian artist Olia Mykhailiuk was the central piece, accompanied by the premiere of her film Iripna, finally edited in Latvia, and a special performative programme with the participation of Ukrainian artists.
\n\n\n\nClose cooperation was established with the Kyiv Biennial through the development of various programmes within the activities of the East Europe Biennial Alliance. The war in Ukraine has introduced bold corrections in the writing of history, significantly affecting the art world, raising the relevance of the postcolonial discourse in the context of the region and highlighting the acute need for a process of decolonisation.
\n\n\n\nMiina Hujala is an artist and a curator, working as the director of the Alkovi art space as well as the curator of the Connecting Points programme at HIAP (Helsinki International Artist Programme). She is an artistic researcher and project manager on the Reside/Sustain-project that started in 2021.
After the start of the invasion in Ukraine in February 2022, I felt that war with its destructive violence that became real in Ukraine made the threat more pronounced also in Finland. I had been working with Russian artists, mainly organising residencies and exhibitions with them in the framework of the Connecting Points programme in the residency organisation HIAP (Helsinki International Artist Programme) from 2016. I had been somewhat safeguarded from a straightforward exposure to the harshness of the Russian regime, as I didn’t have to work with state institutions, nor deal with issues related to administration directly, but I had no illusions and no problem in understanding that anything is possible from the current regime. I had been following the situation from the side lines, so to speak. After the attack, the dependency of Europe on Russian natural resources, especially in the energy sector, became very visible. It has been noted before those deep-rooted issues within Russian society – like the narrow role of civil society or unreliable justice system – have often been overlooked, but now the concessions that have been and are being made to accommodate trade are taken a bit more seriously. Unfortunately, the ethical dimension is still often neglected.
\n\n\n\nFor me, it’s important to emphasise that people are not their passports. After the Russian invasion, withdrawing from working with institutions in Russia has been the most direct result in my professional life and this also meant adjusting and rearranging projects that I was working with. More specifically, not travelling to Russia meant that, for instance, a project dealing with land-based methods of travel and that aimed at utilising the Trans-Siberian route to travel east had to be re-routed. I feel that diplomacy always has its power, but there is no sense in aiming to continue things as they were. Although maintaining contacts and connections is crucial. At HIAP (but also through a wider network), directing support to Ukrainians in the form of Ukraine Solidarity Residencies has been one of the ways to offer aid.
\n\n\n\nFinding ways to address the situation and how to continue have been at the forefront. I visited Tallinn after the invasion took place in early March 2022. I felt I needed some breathing space. As Vabaduse väljak (Freedom square) was basking in the direct late winter/early spring sunlight, I texted with my Russian colleagues from a recently started project called Reside/Sustain that addresses art residencies and sustainability. I stated that unpredictability had become more acutely present. I felt sad, as so many have tried to enable contacts and connectivity between people to lessen or dilute any harsh sentiments and antagonism. My projects are all about making discoveries, and allowing the versatility of perspectives to manifest is crucial. I bought Maggie Nelson’s book On Freedom from a book shop in Telliskivi during that trip, and I believe that what is difficult has to be examined head on, it’s not worth avoiding it – it’s the pursuit of art (also science) that we don’t avoid trouble, but don’t go looking for it either.
\n\n\n\nI read an article by Gregori Yudin on my phone while strolling around Balti Jaam market, trying to understand what was happening. War is a total negation of freedom. The violence done within will always find a way to manifest outside as well, that is what I thought then. Here is what I think now: changing scenery is freedom. Drawing borders is hard, as we share so much. But as far as how my thinking has changed – now the need for borders seems even more pronounced. The entities these borders should be erected between are in constant movement though, as things are more akin to constellations with dependencies than clearly divided sectors. Sanctions is an example of one kind of performance of drawing lines, an attempt to define how to affect but not to be too affected. We need to understand the importance of being able to draw these lines, even if only temporarily. The Tallinn trip crystallised this thought for me: accepting the unfamiliar in the world is sometimes made easier by displacement in it.
\n\n\n\nThe (art)world wants to show compassion and solidarity with the ones suffering, but as the issue is too complex, usually the measures taken fail in comparison. But I do think that the desire (to show support) is genuine, which is important in our somewhat cynical culture(s), and for many in Ukraine it has become tangible and acknowledged in ways it obviously wasn’t before – and all the emphasis and the focus is necessary.
\n\n\n\nOlga Balashova is an art historian and art critic, lecturer and researcher of 20th century art. Currently, she is Head of the Board of the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) NGO аnd adjunct professor in Kyiv-Mohyla Business School. In 2017–2020, she worked as Deputy Director for Development at the National Art Museum of Ukraine.
After the full-scale Russian invasion just about everything changed for me and my colleagues. At first, the world narrowed to the space between the walls of my apartment and the closest people nearby. When war is so close to you that you can only plan your life until the next morning, you feel very disappointed that the art world didn’t change at all. Art people and institutions continue to live their own lives at the same pace. Your world collapsed, but all practices outside Ukraine remained the same – same biennials, same art fairs, same events with the same topics. Business as usual. So, we began knocking on every door to be heard and to be present. And we were heard. We did a lot of unplanned exhibition projects in Venice, Washington, Boston, Berlin and Sarajevo. We gain support from the international art community in the form of emergency aid.
\n\n\n\nIn 2022, our small organisation – the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) and the Ukrainian Art Emergency Fund foundation (that we created with our friends and close colleagues after 24 February), unexpectedly had the opportunity to cooperate with international organizations such as UNESCO, or receive assistance from large renowned foundations such as The Sigrid Rausing Trust, The Andy Warhol and Tiger Foundations. Thanks to these institutions and the beautiful people who work there, we were able to support dozens of art projects and hundreds of creative people in Ukraine during wartime. But very few things scare me as much as long-term plans. Ukraine appeared on the cultural map thanks to the people who gave their lives for it. But will we be able to integrate into a detached and cynical art world, which will continue to live its life even after Ukraine’s victory, and what will happen if we don’t win the war?
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\n","title":"Kaarin Kivirähk"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxODM4","title":"Mapping Monsters","slug":"mapping-monsters","uri":"/mapping-monsters/","date":"2023-05-11T12:59:51","excerpt":"Angela Maasalu and Jaak Juske take us on a fantastical tour of the monsters of Tallinn, weaving together folk tales and stories about political and historical events. The city of dragons In 2022, the Tallinn Town Hall celebrated the 700th anniversary since it was first mentioned. The facade of the building is decorated with the […]
\n","content":"\nAngela Maasalu and Jaak Juske take us on a fantastical tour of the monsters of Tallinn, weaving together folk tales and stories about political and historical events.
\n\n\n\nIn 2022, the Tallinn Town Hall celebrated the 700th anniversary since it was first mentioned. The facade of the building is decorated with the heads of two green dragons – two spectacular metal gargoyles. But there is another one – Kolmas Draakon, or the Third Dragon, is the name given to the Town Hall tavern. Dragons can be found elsewhere in the Old Town too, mainly as weathervanes decorating Medieval buildings. Additionally, we can see dragons with magnificent wings on the facade of the Art Nouveau style building at 18 Pikk Street, completed in 1910, now home to Draakoni art gallery.
\n\n\n\nBut beware, in the Old Town more monstrosities can be found – just across the street from Draakoni Gallery sits the Embassy of the Russian Federation. In response to the brutal war Russia has launched against Ukraine, the Estonian parliament declared the current Russian regime terrorist and locals have covered the security fence in front of the building with images of the horrors committed in Ukraine.
\n\n\n\nThe Tallinn Old Town is abundant with ghost stories with new ones constantly appearing. One such story is tied to an old merchant house at 16 Rataskaevu Street.
\n\n\n\nAccording to the legend, a long time ago, the owner of that house had foolishly burnt through his riches and was becoming desperate. One night his despair had reached such depths that he decided to end his life. And precisely at that moment, a stranger stepped into the room and asked the moneyless master of the house to hold a lavish party on the upper floor of the house the following night. In return, the stranger promised him unimaginable riches but only on the condition that there were no witnesses to the celebration, whoever does so, will face death. The owner of the house agreed.
\n\n\n\nThe following evening, just as agreed, carriages arrived in front of the house, the upper floor windows were lit and the stairs could be heard creaking, exactly as it would under the feet of hordes of people. Beautiful music could be heard from the hall and the whole house rumbled as if a large crowd of people was dancing there. As soon as the clock struck one, the ghostly party vanished. It was said that the owner of the house must have been compensated generously, as already the next morning he continued living even more lavishly than before.
\n\n\n\nAround the same time, his valet de chambre unexpectedly died. Before drawing his last breath, he had told the priest that he had secretly witnessed the devil’s wedding. And so we know that, at least once, the devil has held a party in Tallinn.
\n\n\n\nOn the facade of the same house, behind the leftmost window of the second floor we can see a wall. From the outside, it looks as if curtains have been drawn but, in fact, these are painted on the wall behind the window. According to the legend, the master of the house had permanently closed the door to the room and in order to hide the unused room, he had a curtain painted on the walled-up window.
\n\n\n\nThere are also numerous places related to monsters outside the Old Town. Tallinn is divided into eight municipalities and 84 districts. Among these districts are Tondi and Tondiraba, roughly translating into English as “phantom” and “phantom bog” districts. However, the Tondi district located in Kristiine municipality got its name not because of notable sightings of phantoms but after a former landowner and nobleman named Dunte. The Tondiraba district in the Lasnamäe municipality might actually have been such a ghostly place that the bog did, in fact, become known for supposed supernatural phenomena among the local people. By the way, in 1983 traces of meteorite impact were discovered in the limestone found in the area. Most likely, a heavenly monster struck the Tondiraba area around 20,000–25,000 BC.
\n\n\n\nThere is another statue of a monster in the park of Glehn Castle in the municipality of Nõmme – a concrete sculpture depicting a dragon. The sculpture was created in 1908 on the initiative of local nobleman Nikolai von Glehn. Glehn wanted to create a scene from Estonian mythology, where Kalevipoeg, the hero of the national epic, is stalked by a monster. However, owing to visual similarity, local people started calling the monster a crocodile.
\n\n\n\nSites with a bloody history can be equally monstrous. And there are numerous such examples in Tallinn. In the Kalarand district we find the massive Patarei Sea Fortress complex, built in the first half of the 19th century as a prison that was feared for many many years. In the early years of the Soviet occupation, just after the Second World War, several thousands of people were imprisoned there in horrid conditions. Today, the former cells and execution room can be visited as exhibits.
\n\n\n\nIn the Old Town, on the corner of Pikk Street and Pagari Street, the KGB museum is open in the basement of the building – this is yet another site where people were tortured during the Soviet period. Now more than ever, difficult history must not be forgotten.
\n\n\n\nIn the primeval valley of the Pirita river in Tallinn, the buildings of the abandoned Kose manor are being devoured by time. In 1942, when the occupying German army decided to use the servants’ house of Kose manor for their operations, a problem occurred – their horses became restless inside the building. To investigate, the newly poured concrete floor was removed and a horrific discovery was made: a year before the German occupation began in Estonia, the NKVD had executed 25 people and covered their bodies in concrete to hide the crime. Elsewhere around the manor, mass graves with the remains of at least 53 people were also found. Although the NKVD’s preferred style of execution was a shot in the back of the head, these people had been buried alive. The exact number of bodies found in the grounds of Kose manor and the identities of the people still remain unclear.
\n\n\n\nJaak Juske is a teacher and populariser of history based in Tallinn. He has written over 30 books, mainly on the history of Estonian cities.
\n","title":"Jaak Juske"},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzY4","content":"\nAngela Maasalu is a visual artist living and working in London, UK.
\n","title":"Angela Maasalu"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzA1","title":"Unknown Creatures of Faraway Lands","slug":"unknown-creatures-of-faraway-lands","uri":"/unknown-creatures-of-faraway-lands/","date":"2023-05-11T13:01:48","excerpt":"In recent years we can notice an ongoing fascination among contemporary artists with different creatures: human-animal hybrids, monsters, animals. Something definitely seems to be in the air, even if we start from the more obvious examples, such as the 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice titled The Milk of Dreams and curated by Cecilia Alemani, […]
\n","content":"\n\n\n\n\nIn recent years we can notice an ongoing fascination among contemporary artists with different creatures: human-animal hybrids, monsters, animals. Something definitely seems to be in the air, even if we start from the more obvious examples, such as the 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice titled The Milk of Dreams and curated by Cecilia Alemani, where the depiction of non-human forms varied from surrealist images to mythological beings and futuristic forms. However, here I would like to look at the region of the Eastern shore of the Baltic Sea and the works of two Estonian and one Polish artist to see how these artists have been depicting non-human creatures. How are they linked to historical visual culture or to contemporary ideas of the coexistence of species? And most importantly, what is their relationship to the Other, whether the fantastical creatures of faraway lands or hybrid visions of the future?
\n\n\n\nThings might often seem blurry and hard to grasp when looking from the distance and with limited knowledge. In medieval and early modern Europe, knowledge about the area of modern day Estonia and the surrounding countries was relatively vague, based often on antique or medieval descriptions. Until the 17th century, maps depicting the territory of Estonia as we know it today were usually drawn somewhere else – mostly in Western or Southern Europe and full of misconceptions. This is probably the reason why at the end of 11th century, the German clergyman Adam of Bremen described Estonia as an island by the name of Aestland, where people ”worship dragons and birds to whom they sacrifice people.” Eight centuries later, in 1854, the German traveller Johann von Hahn described different types of human tails found in Albania, another remote outpost of Europe. The belief that monstrous races and fantastic creatures lived on the edges of the known world was rather widespread from medieval times to the modern period and creatures and phenomena we now know how to explain, were often considered fantastical. For example, the famous 13th century traveller Marco Polo described a unicorn, however, we can now almost certainly claim the creature he saw was a rhinoceros.
\n\n\n\nIt would be easy to feel superior to the ancient travellers who witnessed fantastical creatures (including humans-hybrids) in faraway lands, such as Estonia or Albania. However, as the example of Marco Polo demonstrates, sometimes the fantastical creatures were, in fact, physically very real. At the same time, magical qualities were often attributed to known animals, such as dogs, lions or horses. In this sense, all known animals could also be considered magical or fantastical creatures. Anu Mänd, professor of art history at Tartu University writes about the depiction of animals and other creatures in medieval Livonia (the historical name of territory on present day Estonia and Latvia), where the images of non-human creatures had religious and allegorical meaning. The hybrid creature of a snake with a woman’s head, symbolising Satan, on the stone craving in Rauna church in Latvia tells the Christian story of original sin. The two lions in Padise monastery in northern Estonia were meant to be read as an allegory for the ongoing fight between virtue and evil.
\n\n\n\nTallinn-based artist Edith Karlson has been working with the figures of animals, creatures and hybrid forms from the very beginning of her artistic career. Some of her works, such as Vox Populi (2016), an impressive installation of animal heads, connected with a chain of rabbit poop, evoke Christian iconography. Here, the animals represent human existence, a bit like contemporary memento mori, although the reminder of death is replaced by the reminder of human stupidity and absurdity. However, one could also draw parallels between Karlson’s world of weird creatures and strange animals with pre-Christian Estonian mythology. Estonia was Christianised in the 13th century, but many pagan beliefs have since existed alongside or merged with Christian tradition. Spirits and even diabolical creatures were living alongside people, sometimes they could be tricked by humans and deals could be made with them. Similarly, Edith Karlson has placed a huge dinosaur in the public urban space in Tallinn (Good Old Times, 2021) or brought ghostly human figures to a busy art fair, with snakes inside their bodies (Good, Bad, Ugly, 2021, made for Art Basel). Life alongside various supernatural creatures is not something overly romantic, neither is it horrible but rather mundane, a practical business with diabolical beings.
\n\n\n\nFinding ways to exist alongside other species was not an uncommon topic even in the Christian medieval world: Anu Mänd describes how the Christian stories of saints preached cooperation between animals and humans. For example, Saint Jerome, depicted on the famous high altar retable in Niguliste church in Tallinn, is part of the well-known story where the saint healed a lion, after which the lion lived with him and other monks as their pet. However, these stories not only preached kindness towards animals but also often fixed the status of humans as superior to animals and enforced an attitude, where the role of the animal was to serve humans.
\n\n\n\nContemporary post-humanism tries to overcome this notion of human superiority. Polish artist Wiktoria Walendzik creates uncanny, sensual compositions of humans and other creatures. A dark monstruous octopus sits in a bath covered in seashells, together with a human figure or, in another work, a giant horse swallows a tiny human, and in yet another, a female character sits on top of a pine-man. Her works flicker on the edge of erotica but also show the potential for empathy with the unknown. In the catalogue for the 59th International Art Exhibition The Milk of Dreams, Rosi Braidotti writes about the importance of including feminist thought in post-humanist theory: ”A sort of intergalactic Alliance of feminists and LGBTQ+ with aliens and monsters lies at the heart of the science fiction horror genre […]. It supports the composition of an assemblage between women and LGBTQ+ as the others of Man and the other others in the form of non-whites […], non-anthropomorphic organisms […] and so forth.” It brings forward possible alternative views of the world and shows empathy and compassion which goes further from human-centred thinking. Estonian artist Kadri-Liis Rääk has worked with possible visions of futuristic life forms. Rather than cold and machine-like, her works show these creatures as soft and touchable. At her exhibition Xarcadia in 2022 (Hiob Gallery, Tallinn) she furnished a possible home for a nameless creature in the future. The artist writes: ”An empathic creature, reliant and dependent on its surroundings is born, synthesising impulses from a lost world.”
\n\n\n\nIn this way, imagining non-human creatures inhabiting the unknown territory of the future, is in some way similar to the medieval travellers who were describing unknown lands and the creatures they either found or imagined living there. Although the distance of the travellers was only limited by space, not time, the level of mystery was probably similar to today’s interpretations of the future. The difference might be, however, that these new imaginations could also include empathy towards the weird creatures inhabiting the faraway future, and not only cultivate fear and misunderstanding.
\n\n\n\nKaarin Kivirähk is the editor-in-chief of A Shade Colder.
\n","title":"Kaarin Kivirähk"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxODIy","title":"Process > result, or notes on running a project space for those who need a sign to start one","slug":"process-result-or-notes-on-running-a-project-space-for-those-who-need-a-sign-to-start-one","uri":"/process-result-or-notes-on-running-a-project-space-for-those-who-need-a-sign-to-start-one/","date":"2023-05-11T13:00:07","excerpt":"The experience I’ve had with co-running a project space and admiring other similar initiatives from afar, either geographically distant or in terms of my inhabited time, has made me believe that while high-production-value exhibitions in museums and art centres can be amazing experiences, the most genuine and exhilarating encounters often take place in project rooms […]
\n","content":"\nThe experience I’ve had with co-running a project space and admiring other similar initiatives from afar, either geographically distant or in terms of my inhabited time, has made me believe that while high-production-value exhibitions in museums and art centres can be amazing experiences, the most genuine and exhilarating encounters often take place in project rooms and artist-run spaces. A recent offer from A Shade Colder gave me an excuse to interview people from self-initiated project spaces and I contacted Kaspars Groševs from 427 Gallery in Riga, Edgaras Gerasimovičius from Swallow in Vilnius, and Sunna Ástþórsdóttir from The Living Art Museum in Reykjavík. What follows are selected thoughts on running a project space now in these uncertain times.
\n\n\n\n427 Gallery was founded in 2014 by the artists Kaspars Groševs and Ieva Kraule-Kūna. Since 2016 the gallery has been run by Groševs and Marta Trektere. 427 sees itself as a gathering place for a portion of the Riga contemporary art scene, providing an exhibition space for artists and practices that are poorly represented in the state institutions and commercial galleries.
\n\n\n\nWhen I ask about the motivation for initiating 427, Kaspars tells me that it had a lot to do with a lack of spaces and action in Riga: “Even though there were the NOASS Art Centre and RIXC Center for New Media Culture, both artist-run organisations in my opinion, there wasn’t a proper artist-run space. We wanted a space of our own to work with artists we like and pursue international collaborations we were missing here.”
\n\n\n\nTurning nine in April, 427 Gallery has held around 60 exhibitions so far. “Over the years I’ve started to feel more responsibility towards the local art scene – both in terms of exhibiting more Latvian artists but also just keeping the gallery running,” concludes Kaspars and adds: “We even have a small art collection now, accumulated over the years thanks to artworks gifted to us.”
\n\n\n\nThe Living Art Museum, or Nýló, as it is called in everyday speech, is a very different type of artist-run space. Established more than 40 years ago, it functions to this day as an artist-run museum with a collection, exhibition space, and multiple archives for researchers.
\n\n\n\n“Although the history of the space is unique, the context of reacting to a certain deficiency is shared with a lot of other artist-run spaces. Back in 1978, a group of local artists experiencing stagnation in the public art institutions decided to take matters into their own hands by founding a museum in order to collect contemporary art disregarded by the state institutions,” adds Sunna.
\n\n\n\nBeing a museum, Nýló’s aim to this day is to preserve and exhibit contemporary art, and at the same time continuously filling in gaps as these are perceived by the Icelandic artist community. Sunna continues: “In terms of the history and the lifespan of Nýló, there have been tremendous changes. Even though the direction changes with every new board, assigned by the association of the museum, the core DNA of the museum is to react to certain needs – be it about representation, spaces, related to collecting, preserving or anything else that the future holds.”
\n\n\n\nSwallow is a project space in Vilnius initiated in 2020 by three curators Audrius Pocius, Edgaras Gerasimovičius and Vaida Stepanovaitė. Edgaras tells us that Swallow appeared from a very specific context: “It was about seizing an opportunity and it had a lot to do with the power shifts in the local and Baltic art scene. With the Contemporary Art Centre (CAC) in Vilnius closing for renovations, the MO Museum opening and RIBOCA also appearing, we understood it as a great time to open a new space.”
\n\n\n\nIt wasn’t long until the Swallow team found their place at SODAS 2123 cultural centre and the trio was able to start planning their programme: “Looking back, the process was somewhat spontaneous, and everything started from the chaos we found ourselves in,” Edgaras ponders. Although the initial aim was to establish an exchange platform for local and international artists, the opening time coincided with the pandemic and Swallow had to recalibrate their plans. Edgaras explains: “The first exhibition was done together with artists who came back from abroad and it was a kind of a celebration of returning to Vilnius and being together during unusual times. In a way the pandemic changed our perspective, now we exhibit more local artists.”
\n\n\n\nOff-spaces and artist-run spaces often pop up in derelict urban areas, where artists can gain access to spaces with cheap rent only temporarily and are thereby integrated into the process of gentrification. 427 has moved once and Kaspars tells us that it happened thanks to another artist-run publishing house-bookstore-bar Bolderāja: “At the time the area was still pretty crazy: outcast people, run down houses, nothing really happening here. Soon other art spaces and bars started opening here too. I guess you could say that we’re part of the slow gentrification process but thankfully it’s still affordable and the area is mostly characterised by students and cosy bars.”
\n\n\n\nSwallow is located in the SODAS 2123 cultural complex, housed in an old boarding school, with artists’ studios, other art and event spaces, a community garden, a bar and much more. Edgaras thinks that the relationship to the physical context of Swallow is a love-hate relationship: “The good thing is that we have a lot of collegiality in the community here. We think a lot about the larger context of our role as friends and co-workers in the same field and how we relate to the future of the building and thus also the area.” Currently, SODAS has a contract with the municipality for 20 years, which gives them a lot of time to focus on day-to-day activities. Edgaras adds: “Most likely the community has to fight for our space after this, in order to not be part of the standard gentrification process of getting demolished right after we’ve served our part. At the same time sustaining the complex and the community is draining and that’s why some people have already left.”
\n\n\n\nThe Living Art Museum, in addition to putting on shows and establishing archives, has more demands for the space they inhabit. Sunna tells us that they too have moved, around 6 or 7 times over the years, but since 2017 they have been located in an old herring factory, which was renovated as a cultural centre. In addition to Nýló, the factory houses another established artist-run space Kling & Bang Gallery, commercial gallery i8, Olafur Eliasson’s studio, and a restaurant. “It’s a good mix of artist-run spaces and other institutions. Having a long-term contract in a newly renovated building is also a privilege we haven’t had before,” says Sunna.
\n\n\n\nWhile the stories from Iceland may seem unusual to us in the Baltics, where we only see state and private institutions with the resources to establish and/or operate out of newly renovated art spaces, the fact that artist-run initiatives are offered such a privileged space really shows that the Icelandic art scene is a lot more artist-led.
\n\n\n\nProject spaces and artist-run initiatives are often described as an alternative to state and private art institutions. They might practise non-hierarchical modes of organisation, more often than not have a non-commercial approach to art production, and experiment in their programming, as well as giving a chance to early-career artists. I am interested in the local context of my interviewees and what the word alternative entails there. While exhibitions in project spaces don’t always look so different to what viewers may see in other galleries, the perceived difference may manifest in the mindset: “I think we want to be an alternative to the mindset of over-producing. We can’t and don’t need to produce everything like exhibitions with only new artworks, events, books, souvenirs etc. We don’t need to follow a schedule, we can plan our time more freely,” explains Edgaras. This year Swallow has had only two exhibitions, which means the freedom to take their time in a way most institutions cannot. At the same time, the principle of slow programming and focusing on other projects in addition to exhibitions is refreshing because sometimes following all the art events happening in the city can be exhausting.
\n\n\n\nWhile talking about museum programming, Kaspars notes that running a gallery is not always about being merely an alternative to something but it’s about building your own thing and through this, influencing other institutions too: “In Latvia it is sadly quite common that museums don’t pay fees to exhibiting artists and they have to find their own co-funding to get a pay cheque. We have always paid fees and I guess that can be considered an alternative here,” says Kaspars. At the time of our video call, 427 was not even functioning as a gallery but as a CBD shop as a means to make ends meet due to the lack of funding – another streetwise way of navigating the daily precariousness of running your own project space. “In addition, when I work with artists it’s a lot more personal than I believe can be achieved in an institution. I love being a host and showing people around. With our last exhibition by the Swedish artist Albin Looström, we spent a night drinking beer at the gallery and showing each other our local hip hop on Youtube,” exemplifies Kaspars. This level of intimacy is hard to imagine in communications with bigger institutions, and that highlights the tendency to prefer the process to the celebratory opening – real sparks of connection always fly before the six o’clock wine or craft beer with the curious audience.
\n\n\n\nSunna concludes our conversation by saying that the artist-run ideology affects every decision they have to take: “This influences who we choose to work with, how we do it, how we collect, work together as a team, divide administrational tasks etc. – the choices we make and the methods we use distinguish us from public institutions and commercial galleries.” Talking about valuing the process and the genuine human connection that has grown out of working together on something you believe in, while managing scarce resources with care and integrity may sound like a cliché, but the people who have run alternative project spaces can attest to this: “A lot of what goes on in artist-run spaces has to do with care and bravery. I know these words are loaded but taking bold choices and nurturing the collective is very important,” says Sunna.
\n\n\n\nWhile staying in opposition to the unequal power relations in the art world is one of the main aims of the self-initiated and artist-run scene, it is hard to sustain the alternative formats that also need time, money and labour to persist. The Living Art Museum is a good example of an artist-run organisation that at least for now seems to have hacked the premise of staying young forever that is expected from the alternative scene. Edgaras and Kaspars also hope to find the middle ground between institutionalising and fading away, suggesting that bequeathing the space or establishing it as a nomadic gallery might be realistic options at some point.
\n\n\n\nIt is easy to get seduced by the alternative models these spaces practice, but another way of looking at the success of the alternative scene is by the lives it has touched. Taking a clear political stance and working with likeminded people is important. For example, just two weeks after Russia invaded Ukraine, 427 together with Low Gallery put together a fundraiser screening video works by Ukrainian artists and selling beer donated by Latvian breweries. Discussing similar efforts in Vilnius, Edgaras adds: “In addition to working with Ukrainian artists we lend our premises to NGOs that are working with people we can’t reach. Sharing our resources with people affected by difficult situations is a constant process.”
\n\n\n\nThe day after we’d finished with the interviews and having said our goodbyes, I went out into muddy Tallinn to prepare for another opening at the Infinite Life Gallery located in a display case next to a tram stop. Thanks to the conversations with Sunna, Edgaras and Kaspars, and my own experience with co-running the aforementioned gallery – a modest alternative exhibition space in its second life phase that has operated in the limbo between oblivion and sudden reincarnation for years – I’ve come to the conclusion that while the everyday reality of running an off-space is often shadowed by the lack of money and relies on borrowed time, taking a toll on motivation and making quitting a desirable option, what makes independent and artist-run spaces special in this precarious situation, is that their solutions for managing difficulties bring new energy to the art field. Coming up with unorthodox approaches to managing scarce resources, easily shedding skin and acquiring a new shape and valuing the intimate process of working closely with other people, are just some of the characteristics that refuel the art field with potential for adopting the alternative ways of working we so often yearn for. While drinking hot wine on the street and laughing at stories of installing a show in horizontal rain, I felt a little tickle, affirming that although the self-initiated endeavours I’m a fan of are low-key and mostly go unnoticed, in the wider cultural field, they make sticking around worthwhile.
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\n","title":"Brigit Arop"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxODE3","title":"The Bumpy Road of Estonian Outsider Art","slug":"the-bumpy-road-of-estonian-outsider-art","uri":"/the-bumpy-road-of-estonian-outsider-art/","date":"2023-05-11T13:02:38","excerpt":"In-between systems and services Outsider art or art brut in Estonia has not been researched much until recent years. As an object of research, outsider art is closely linked to developments in the fields of psychiatry and special care services and in the wider society – in Estonia, attitudes towards people with psychological special needs […]
\n","content":"\nOutsider art or art brut in Estonia has not been researched much until recent years. As an object of research, outsider art is closely linked to developments in the fields of psychiatry and special care services and in the wider society – in Estonia, attitudes towards people with psychological special needs (mental disability, psychiatric diagnoses) have only recently started changing for the better. We have very little knowledge about older, that is, historical art created by people with special mental health needs, and we know almost nothing about such artworks made between 1920 and 1990. In the current state of research, we lack facts, so we can only make educated guesses when it comes to outsider art from the past. Estonian psychiatric hospitals, such as the clinic in Tartu (established in 1877), Jämejala near Viljandi (1897), Seewald in Tallinn (1903) and Pilguse in Saaremaa (1913), all simultaneously functioned both as medical institutions and care facilities until World War II. According to the Central Bureau of the Republic of Estonia in 1929, care was provided to around 3,000 mentally ill people. During the Soviet occupation, people with special mental health needs were increasingly institutionalised and the number of both people in special care and the number of care homes (or as they were called at the time, homes for invalids) increased. The political agenda of Soviet period care facilities was tied to ideas of re-education through labour (for people for whom such an approach was applicable)1The duty to work in accordance with ability was applied to people in institutional care before the Soviet period as well.. Recreation and leisure were not prioritised, although cinema and literature as art forms that could be submitted to ideological control in closed facilities were preferred as entertainment. Painting and drawing were not priorities, although there were people who did draw. It can definitely be said that valuable works that were created despite everything in care facilities and psychiatric hospitals during the Soviet period have been lost or destroyed because preserving these was not considered important.
\n\n\n\nAfter the Soviet occupation, especially from the 2000s onwards, social services were restructured and since then, one of the main objectives in special care has been deinstitutionalisation.
\n\n\n\nIn 2003, I started working as the director of the Kondas Centre, an art museum that had just opened in Viljandi. The permanent exhibition presents the works of the naïve painter Paul Kondas (1900–1985), a school teacher from Viljandi and Suure-Jaani. As he was also a self-taught artist, the centre’s mission is to research and introduce phenomena that often remain outside the established art world, such as self-taught and naïve artists and Sunday painters. A year after the museum was opened, I started going on research trips around Estonia to find artists who had a high drive to create art but modest knowledge and skill compared to professionals. Many of the original artists I met during the fieldwork between 2004 and 2008, were already elderly, and by now, almost all of them have left this world. Interviewing them, I found that these artists had mostly held simple jobs, lived in small towns and villages away from large centres and had had extremely limited contact with professional cultural fields. After a more active period of researching the legacy of naïve artists, my focus shifted towards art created by people with special mental health needs. The first exhibitions of works by artists in need of additional support2In the Estonian context, the expression “supported artist” is tentative and somewhat misleading, since the care system generally lacks professional instructors. were shown in the museum already in 2004 and 2005. Before 2018 art brut was not exhibited in a systematic way at the Kondas centre; however, 2017 could now be considered a turning point as a new funding opportunity became available in connection to the centenary of the Republic of Estonia. In 2018, Estonia celebrated 100 years since it gained independence and among other programmes, the state offered additional arts funding as part of their One Hundred Art Landscapes programme. The Kondas Centre applied with the idea of holding the first ever exhibition of artists in need of additional support from all over the country. In 2003, the art historian Sigrid Saarep had organised a landmark event – the first international conference of outsider art and the exhibition Offending the Medusa. In the exhibitions displayed at various locations in Tallinn, works created at the Tallinn Support Center Juks were exhibited alongside self-taught artists. It can be said that Juks is more or less the only institution within the Estonian special care system employing professional art teachers. After Offending the Medusa, no systematic research into outsider art was done until 2017.
\n\n\n\nThe first challenge we faced when starting the project as part of the One Hundred Art Landscapes programme was to find information about artists and how to reach them both in institutions and homes. How many could there even be in Estonia? We had many questions and not so many answers.
\n\n\n\nAccording to studies, there are up to 55,000 people with special mental health needs living in Estonia. That is as many as there are inhabitants in Narva, the third-largest city in Estonia. About 11,000 people receive either permanent or temporary care services, but in offering creative services to people in special care, we are lagging behind Western Europe by 20 to 30 years.
\n\n\n\nAs a first step, I turned to the list of special care facilities provided on the web page of the Social Insurance Board and began visiting these. Although these institutions are not generally very open, buzzwords like the “centenary art programme” and “art exhibition” opened doors to many support and day care centres. These visits allowed us to meet people creating art in the facilities, as well as the conditions and opportunities for crafting and making art on site but more broadly also how the system of special care operates. Sometimes differences of opinion appeared and it became clear we had a different understanding of what art is – in the facilities the personnel rarely thought that the people who live there make ‘art’, but rather they ‘draw things’. I witnessed how artworks made during the day were binned in the evening because “they will make new ones” the following day. Notably, weaving looms were present in almost all of the facilities – as a relic of the Soviet period attitude that the patents need to work, I assume – but high-quality paper, pencils and paint were much harder to find.
\n\n\n\nBefore spring 2020, when care facilities were almost entirely closed due to the pandemic, I managed to visit around 25 special care facilities across the country – from Võru to Saaremaa and Pärnu to Narva. By early 2023, the Kondas centre had bought over 500 artworks thanks to the support of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and collected valuable material, interviewed artists as well as activities supervisors. The primary criterium for purchase was the level of artistry and in some cases, the remarkable story behind the piece.
\n\n\n\nOn several occasions, these trips made me wonder about the source of creativity. For example, sometimes art is the only means of communication with the world, as was the case with Ingrid, a woman whose colourful images of communication are now part of the Kondas collection. Ingrid (b. 1952) is deaf and mute and lives in a care home in Sillamäe in Ida-Viru County, located in a hospital complex in the former closed Soviet city. Ingrid is mentally disabled and nobody ever taught her sign language, yet she started using drawing to communicate: whenever she needs something or has run out of something – hand cream, toilet paper, soap, clean clothes – she draws it on paper and brings it to a carer at her facility. Thanks to a volunteer from Sweden who worked at the care home years ago, Ingrid has been provided with high quality art supplies. In her case, making art is not just a practical need but also a way to express thoughts and feelings. An attentive observer, she depicts events around her; often she seems to mentally divide the surface of the paper in two, depicting two seemingly unrelated themes. Ingrid relieves stress and tension by drawing colourful squares in her notebook.
\n\n\n\nJüri (b. 1971) lives in the largest special care home in south Estonia, in the city of Võru, where he was relocated as an adult after his mother died. He graduated from the Urvaste special-needs school but after coming to the care home, he stopped communicating. It took a long time before he began drawing with others in the activities room. Increasingly, his semi-abstract works began including dates and a few words. When he was asked something, he wrote the reply on paper; sometimes he would secretly hide scissors in his pocket and would cut up his shoes, unscrew skirting boards, or even his entire bed. When Jüri saw his works in the Kondas centre in 2018, he suddenly became extremely social, began speaking and once, disappeared in the city of Võru for two days. After this incident, his treatment was altered. In recent years, he does not draw as often and most of his works are black and white.
\n\n\n\nBased on these two brief examples, we can see that creating art is a tool for people who need additional support to better perceive and analyse the world around them, but it also provides others with the opportunity to understand their inner world.
\n\n\n\nMaking talented creators visible and recognising their work helps people who need additional support to gain better conditions for making art and help society understand that different people should be met on equal grounds, which, in turn, helps create more cohesion in society in general.
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\n","title":"Mari Vallikivi"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzQ5","title":"Piecing together a lost history & Forget Me Not","slug":"piecing-together-a-lost-history-forget-me-not","uri":"/piecing-together-a-lost-history-forget-me-not/","date":"2023-05-11T13:01:25","excerpt":"Piecing together a lost history One of the largest collections of art works by psychiatric patients created before the emergence of contemporary psychopharmacology is located at the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg. The museum housing this collection is located in the building of the old clinic (Altklinikum Bergheim) at Heidelberg University. Among the first who started […]
\n","content":"\nBy Mari Vallikivi
One of the largest collections of art works by psychiatric patients created before the emergence of contemporary psychopharmacology is located at the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg. The museum housing this collection is located in the building of the old clinic (Altklinikum Bergheim) at Heidelberg University.
\n\n\n\nAmong the first who started looking more closely at the creative works of mentally ill people was Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), the founder of scientific psychiatry and the founder of the experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Tartu. He worked at Heidelberg University from 1891 to 1903 and before that also in Tartu, Estonia (1886–1891). In 1887, he became a professor of psychiatry and the head of the University of Tartu psychiatric hospital, but due to the language barrier, the daily work with patients turned out to be “extremely troublesome” 1Allik, J. 2022. Eesti psühholoogia lugu. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 66., as Kraepelin writes in his memoirs. The majority of the patients at the hospital were Estonians but there were also Germans, Latvians, Russians, Finns and Jewish and Polish people but the professor struggled to find a common language and due to the pressure of the Russification2In the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire, which Estonia was part of at the time, led a policy of supressing the right of self-determination and autonomy of ethnic minorities. policy, in 1891, he returned to Germany. In Tartu, Kraepelin developed the nosological classification of mental illnesses, with two of the most significant groups of illnesses being maniacal depressive illnesses and dementia praecox (contemporary term: schizophrenia).3Allik, J. 2022. Eesti psühholoogia lugu. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 68 During his time there, the conditions for patients in the facility were also improved. It is highly likely that it was then that medical professionals started collecting materials, such as writings, scribbles and drawings, as part of patients’ medical records for the first time in Tartu. This was all seen as part of their case history that contributed to their diagnosis.
\n\n\n\nThere are not many works in the Prinzhorn collection from the period Kraepelin worked at Heidelberg but among them, for example, is a handkerchief embroidered by Jane Grier (1856–1902) that will also be displayed at the exhibition If you could understand something from the dreams you had? at Tartu Art Museum (17 June – 15 October 2023). Kraepelin also used patients’ artworks as teaching materials; for example, in 1896, he “sought to demonstrate the ‘degenerate’ in symbolism with patient drawings”, and during diagnostics exercises, he combined art by patients with mental illnesses with reproductions of modern art.4Brand-Claussen, B. 2021. Between Respect and Ostracism. The History of a Crazy Collection, Introduction to the Prinzhorn Collection, 6
\n\n\n\nYears later, Kraepelin’s former assistant and the head of the Heidelberg University psychiatric hospital Karl Wilmanns (1873–1945), together with Hans Prinzhorn (1886–1933), who had studied both medicine and art history and started working at the clinic as an assistant in 1919, began expanding the collection of patients’ art for research purposes in the same year. Wilmanns and Prinzhorn wrote to asylums and private clinics of German-speaking countries to ask for drawings, paintings, sculptures and scribbles expressing the patients’ psychosis to be sent to their facility in Heidelberg. Their request did not go unanswered and the collection in Heidelberg received nearly 5,000 new works. In 1922, Hanz Prinzhorn published a book titled Artistry of the Mentally Ill (Bildnerei der Geisteskranken), in which he stated that artworks of mentally ill people “resemble art” and are thus not merely support material in establishing a fitting diagnosis.5Outsider Art Now, 2017. Outsider Art Museum, 48 The book was less influential in the field of psychiatry but still carries significance in the field of art. It had a considerable impact on both the Expressionists and the Surrealists. Alongside Expressionist art, a few works from the Prinzhorn collection were also displayed at the Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) travelling exhibition in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1942. Kraepelin died in 1926 before the Third Reich was established; however, he believed that “a policy of reasonable racial hygiene” (verstandige rassenhygiene) could provide a solution to issues related to ‘degeneration’ in Germany, referring to the view that certain cultural influences contribute to the downfall and weakening of a race.6Rael D. Strous etc, 2016. Reflections on Emil Kraepelin: Icon and Reality. The American Journal of Psychiatry. 173 (3), 300-301 He was convinced that society must protect itself from mentally ill people, just like it should from those with contagious illnesses and many of his attitudes were later echoed in his students, several of whom became prominent Nazi psychiatrists. Yet, despite Nazi policies on ‘degenerate’ art, the collection remained nearly untouched and was preserved in a cupboard in the archive of the Heidelberg psychiatric clinic.
\n\n\n\nThe exhibition at the Tartu Art Museum looks at a ground-breaking era in the histories of both psychiatry and art and makes visible the links between Tartu and Heidelberg. Alongside works from the Prinzhorn Collection, the exhibition displays works by psychiatric patients from early 20th century Tartu.
\n\n\n\nBy Thomas Röske
The impressive embroidered handkerchief, dated 1897, is the only surviving work by Jane Grier (1856–1902). It was illustrated on a colour plate by the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in his important psychiatric textbook of 1913 as an “example of the peculiar works of art” by people diagnosed with dementia praecox (later schizophrenia). For his diagnostic view, accordingly, only the “loss of taste in screaming color combinations and strange shapes” asserted itself in the textile.
\n\n\n\nThe unmarried governess and lady’s companion Grier, born in Ireland as the daughter of a ship’s doctor, was living with her mother and sister in Dresden-Neustadt in 1892 when she felt watched and became increasingly agitated. Because she laughed often for no reason, dressed conspicuously, and behaved indecently, her mother sent her to the city’s mental hospital for two months. Further stays here, and at the Pirna institution followed. Grier died in Dresden hospital at the age of 46.Her embroidery on a men’s handkerchief reveals little structure at first glance. Grier initially stitched messages to assistant doctor Willführ in Dresden in four of the corner cartouches for him to remember her. The rest of the needlework, however, is unevenly spread over the handkerchief, loops of whole bundles of yarn are sewn onto some sections, others are not designed. But for the most part, the yarn was not placed haphazardly. Grier used a bundle of threads to frame one of the cartouches. With another, she apparently wanted to design an even more lavish decoration. The loops of different coloured yarn bundles used for this are not symmetrical, but they do form an equally weighted, Baroque whole. Only after this decoration does the embroidery thread seem to have taken on a life of its own, with at least the heart shape on the edge of the cloth probably being intentionally pictorial. In increasing the adornment around her plea not to forget her, the embroiderer, perhaps emotionally overwhelmed, lost control of the composition.
\n\n\n\nSONY DSC
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\n","title":"Mari Vallikivi"},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNzYx","content":"\nThomas Röske has been head of the Prinzhorn Collection of the Psychiatric University Clinic in Heidelberg since 2002. He studied the history of art, musicology and psychology at Hamburg University and obtained his doctorate in 1991 with a book about Hans Prinzhorn. He now teaches art history alternately at Frankfurt University and at Heidelberg University. He has published mainly on German Modernism and Outsider Art. Since 2012, he has been the president of the European Outsider Art Association.
\n","title":"Thomas Röske"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoyMTE1","title":"Majickk sound. A conversation with Dodomundo","slug":"majickk-sound-a-conversation-with-dodomundo","uri":"/majickk-sound-a-conversation-with-dodomundo/","date":"2023-05-12T11:22:31","excerpt":"In conversation between Marika Agu and DJ Dodomundo, podcast Majickk Sounds touches upon the question what happens when an art gallery shapeshifts into a dance club, but also the effects that sound has on the body and mind. Check out one of her mixes on Radio Vilnius.
\n","content":"\n\n\n\n\nIn conversation between Marika Agu and DJ Dodomundo, podcast Majickk Sounds touches upon the question what happens when an art gallery shapeshifts into a dance club, but also the effects that sound has on the body and mind. Check out one of her mixes on Radio Vilnius.
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\n","title":"Marika Agu"}]},"contributors":null}},{"id":"cG9zdDoxNjc0","title":"Your Guide to Estonia and Beyond 2023","slug":"your-guide-to-estonia-and-beyond-2023","uri":"/your-guide-to-estonia-and-beyond-2023/","date":"2023-05-11T13:00:40","excerpt":"Top picks in Estonia: Recommended: BEYOND: FESTIVALS:
\n","content":"\nEKKM, Tallinn
15.04 – 04.06
@ekkmtallinn
Curator Tanel Rander has invited seven artists from Estonia, Ukraine, Belarus and Lithuania to reflect on the topic of unlearning the idea of Eastern Europe. Rander finds that Eastern European identity is not only misleading but also dangerous and serves the interests of Russian imperialism. The curator is interested in the patterns by which trauma transforms itself and inhibits healing, paving the way to its rebirth.
Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn
@kumukunstimuuseum
Through the Black Gorge of Your Eyes. Ten Women Printmakers (6 June – 5 November)
Unframed: Leis, Tabaka and Rožanskaitė (29 September 2023 – 25 February 2024)
This year, Kumu Art Museum focuses on bringing new interpretations of the works of Soviet era women artists. The exhibition on female printmakers, opening in June, offers a contemporary perspective on the work of Estonian women printmakers in the 1960s and 1980s. The curators of the exhibition are Maria Arusoo, Eha Komissarov and Eda Tuulberg. The second exhibition focuses on the work of Baltic artists Malle Leis, Maija Tabaka and Marija Teresė Rožanskaitė in the late Soviet context of the 1970s and 1980s. All three artists challenged their contemporary art discourse through non-conventional approaches to self-representation, novel ways of creating space and through reflections on being artists. Curators are Anu Allas and Laima Kreivytė.
10 October – 26 November
Tallinn Art Hall and various locations, Tallinn
@tallinn_photomonth
Tallinn Photomonth is an international biennial of contemporary art. This edition’s main exhibition Trance (curated by Ilari Laamanen) explores how artworks can complicate and aid in examining the sensory experience in a technologically mediated world. The programme of Photomonth also includes various events, check the webpage for updates.
Tartu Art Museum, Tartu
18 March – 27 August
@tartmus
The exhibition by two well-known Estonian artists, Paul Kuimet and Tõnis Saadoja, combines various media, time periods and approaches to pose the question of whether it is possible to talk about experiencing landscapes through art and in what ways. The curator is Eero Epner.
Tartu Art House, Tartu
6 April – 14 May
@kunstimaja @timo.toots
Timo Toots is an artist who creates interactive installations dealing with social behavioral patterns. His work problematises the impact of technological advancements on society.
Estonian Museum of Applied Art and Design
14 April – 11 June
@disainimuuseum
The international group exhibition looks at the notion of nature in relation to the body and adornment. Challenging the ideologically constructed idea of what is natural, the artists explore possibilities for bodily transformation and enhancement through a variety of materials. Curators: Darja Popolitova and Keiu Krikmann.
Botanical Garden and Maarjamäe limestone bank, Tallinn
11 – 13 May
@biotoopia
Connecting art, natural sciences, and the environment, this year’s hybrid art event Biotoopia invites visitors on a guided journey on 13 May through the Maarjamäe Limestone Bank. Highlights of the art programme include Young Boy Dancing Group, and a trio of folk singers composed of Janika Oras, Leanne Barbo, and Minni Oras.
From 13 May 2023
Vesilennuki 24
In mid May the new gallery Tütar opens in the Tallinn Noblessner area, focusing on the younger generation of Estonian art. The first two artists who will have shows this year are Katrin Piile and Anna Mari Liivrand.
Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn
5 May – 8 October
@kumukunstimuuseum
The exhibition focuses on three themes: the redefinition of Estonian art history from an eco-critical perspective, collaboration between artists, researchers and museums, and the green transformation of museums and exhibitions. The multi-year research project is curated by Linda Kaljundi, Eha Komissarov, Ulrike Plath, Bart Pushaw and Tiiu Saadoja.
27 May – 26 November
Kai Art Center, Tallinn
@kaicenter
The solo show of the Icelandic artist is a multicoulored installation made using synthetic hair extensions that create a suspended labyrinth of colour, a web of intertwined swirls as it floats in chaotic formations surrounding the viewer. The installation inspires an inner journey with a multi sensory language of texture and vibrant chromatic 3D air formation.
Tallinn Art Hall, Tallinn
8 July – 24 September
@tallinnarthall
The international group exhibition Hold Me Tender deals with close relationships, health and social roles, driven by the realization that in order to be good, you must first feel good yourself. The show is curated by Siim Preiman.
EKKM, Tallinn
24 August – 15 October
@ekkmtallinn @jaanus_samma
Jaanus Samma will be focusing on the relationship between national narratives and myths and power. There will be irony towards national myths, queering the image of the hero and undermining the conservative morale. The curator is Krist Gruijthuijsen.
Escape the Kitchen, Vabamu museum, 9 March 2023 – 10 March 2024 @vabamu
Newly opened reconstruction, Niguliste museum @nigulistemuuseum
History museum Vabamu presents and celebrates the history of Estonian women’s movements over the past 150 years. The exhibition is curated by the museum’s head of exhibitions Piret Karro, artist Flo Kasearu, decorator Kaisa Sööt and graphic designer Sandra Kosorotova. Nearby, the Niguliste church museum opened its reconstructed exhibition with a new glass lift that takes visitors to the top of the church tower and allows them to see the medieval architecture up close.
Kumu Art Museum
3 November 2023 – 28 April 2024
@kumukunstimuuseum @melanie_bonajo
melanie bonajo is a Dutch artist, film-maker, sexological bodyworker, somatic sex coach and educator, cuddle workshop facilitator and activist who creates immersive queer spaces. bonajo’s exhibition is research into the current status of intimacy in our increasingly alienating, commodity-driven world. For bonajo, touch can be a powerful remedy for the modern epidemic of loneliness. The exhibition is curated by Maria Arusoo.
Kiasma / URB, Annantalo, Viirus Theatre and Mad House Helsinki, Helsinki
7 – 11 June, 2023
The Baltic Take Over is a festival that takes over the city of Helsinki, curated by the New Theatre Institute of Latvia, Kanuti Gildi Saal (Estonia) and Lithuanian Dance Information Centre. The urgency of this project has emerged from decades of the foreign gaze grouping three distinct countries, culture and histories, together. This takeover will offer an honest presentation of Baltic voices, individual, complicated and not always in harmony, with various artists and performers from the three countries.
Various locations on Vallisaari and in Helsinki
12 June – 17 September
@helsinkibiennial
The biennial brings together around 30 artists and collectives from Finland and across the world. Curated by Joasia Krysa, the biennial reflects on some of the major issues of our time that appear irresolvable, such as environmental damage, political conflict and the effects of technology.
Kling & Bang, The Living Art Museum, Nordic House and various locations, Reykjavik
13 – 22 October, 2023
@sequences_art_festival
Sequences is an artist-run biennial of contemporary art in Reykjavik. This time curated by the curatorial collective of CCA Estonia – Marika Agu, Maria Arusoo, Kaarin Kivirähk and Sten Ojavee – the festival centres around the notions of ecologies, imagined mutations and transformations within a liquid understanding of time. The 10-day festival period will feature performances and a public programme, the exhibitions will be up for between 6 weeks and 2 months.
Kiasma, Helsinki
@kiasmamuseum
Dreamy (28 April – 26 November)
Ars Fennica 2023 (8 September 2023 – 29 January 2024)
The Museum of Contemporary Art Kiasma showcases queer artworks by Nan Goldin, Jacolby Satterwhite, Lynda Benglis and Artor Jesus Inkerö from their collection, curated by Max Hannus. In Autumn, the exhibition presenting the works of the nominees of the most prestigious Finnish art prize opens with works by Henni Alftan, Tuomas A. Laitinen, Lap-See Lam, Camille Norment and Emilija Škarnulytė.
23 July – 6 August 2023
Various locations, Vilnius
The first edition of the Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art will invite Vilnius residents and visitors to witness performances by both established and emerging artists from Lithuania and abroad. The main focus of this Biennial is the city as a human-made and human-dominated environment that we share with other life forms, where different histories, myths, activities, interests, desires and visions collide, coexist and overlap.
11 – 13 May
@elektron.art
16 – 19 August, Tartu
@uitfestival
August, Tallinn
@kanutigildisaal_
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