
<p><strong>Keiu Krikmann</strong> is the managing editor of A Shade Colder.</p>


Keiu Krikmann

Final_illu veebi

Shifting Timelines

Editorial. Shifting Timelines


<p><strong>Kaarin Kivirähk</strong> is the editor-in-chief of A Shade Colder.</p>


Kaarin Kivirähk

illu_nr3 väike

Whispers in the Landscape

Editorial. Whispers in the Landscape

finale

Thirst

Editorial. Thirst

editorial_illustratsioon

The Eyes of My Other

Editorial. The Eyes of My Other

A Shade Colder is a platform for discussions about and around art in Estonia and beyond.

A Shade Colder

ASC_kaascopy


<p>A Shade Colder is a new magazine for conversations about and around art in Estonia and beyond. The publication launches at a time when the region has found itself at the centre of international discussions. We hope that through the lens of contemporary art and visual culture the magazine will become an inspiration and a useful source for engaging with this part of the world.</p>



<p>The first issue, <em>The Eyes of My Other </em>aims to open a multicentric view on art (history). We are seeking to expand and provide a more nuanced perspective on Estonian art, while framing it within an international context. The issue explores ways of (re)framing Estonian visual culture, born between the East and the West, both in the past and the present, looking at both individual artistic practices as well as institutional efforts.</p>



<p>In doing so, the artists and writers featured in this issue conjure images of (frightening) beauty, discuss decolonisation outside the national project, carefully consider local complexities, and being aware of the differences and agency of the gaze from inside and out, they look for shared narratives between art in Estonia and elsewhere.</p>



<p>Highlighting a multiplicity of perspectives is crucial, so that complex social, political and cultural processes would not be reduced to simplistic ideas and discussed based on out-dated concepts and models. This is especially urgent in the light of Russia’s vicious war against Ukraine, the consequences of which will be with us for years to come. A Shade Colder stands in solidarity with the Ukrainian people and will be donating 50% of the proceeds of the sales of its first issue to the Ukrainian Cultural Centre in Estonia, which has been providing support in Ukraine since 2014, as well as the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund, directly targeting the needs of the art community in Ukraine.&nbsp;</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1-300x195.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1-1024x665.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1-1214x788.jpg 1214w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1-1560x1013.jpg 1560w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/editorial_illustratsioon-1.jpg 1617w" data-sizes="auto" width="1617" height="1050" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Illustration: Martina Gofman and Johanna Ruukholm, <em>The Eyes of My Other</em>, 2021.</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p><strong>Shola von Reinhold</strong> is a Scottish writer. Their debut novel, LOTE (2020), was published by Jacaranda Books and won the Republic of Consciousness Prize and the James Tait Memorial Prize.</p>


Shola von Reinhold


<p>I was invited to write on “the different images of beauty that emerge when discovering hidden histories and how these images bleed into and change our perspective on the present”. As part of this project, I was brought on a research trip to Tallinn, where I met artworks, artists, designers and researchers. The following notes, in the most spurious, tangential, threadbare, even subconscious way, contain the afterglow of some of these encounters and conversations and decorative turns.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-300x155.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-1024x528.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-1400x721.jpg 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-1800x927.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-2000x1030.jpg 2000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-2400x1236.jpg 2400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-3000x1545.jpg 3000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-ornament-veebi1-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1319" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>I’ve written before – or tried to – about the sheer sensational force (and romance) of ‘recovery’, be it of artworks, personae, or even ways of feeling, of relating, of experientiality (including of art). I sometimes, against my better judgement, find myself thinking about a moment of the recovery process in terms of an exhumation, one that releases a kind of psychic charge – of course, exhumation is often bounded by a context so deeply, horrifically colonial that it is not a helpful word for the kind of recovery I’m thinking of – and then of course the term ‘recovery’ has serious limits – edges which begin to fray very quickly under scrutiny. The kind of recovery I’m thinking of is, more often than not, in direct contravention of that kind of history-making (disinterment, exhumation of tombs, looting, atrocity). Perhaps the easiest and most well-known recent example of the kind of recovery I mean would be Saidya Hartman’s <em>Wayward Lives</em>, which reupholsters the “extravagance, ornament and shine” of Black social existence, of “the utopian longings and the promise of a future world that resided in waywardness and the refusal to be governed.”</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left">Fragment of a recovery play<br>Dramatis Personae<br>Heraldrine, a member of the Undinous Court, having been ‘a visitor’ there since before theye can remember<br>Undinous Ordinators<br>Assistant Ordinator</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left">Act I Scene I: <em>A soiree is being given by the Ordinators of the Undinous Court – one of several courts in the Anti-Palace. The party is being given in honour of the discovery of an antique.</em></p>



<p class="has-text-align-left"><em>In the centre of the Anti-Palace’s ante-saloon, on display, is a huge faintly green glass vessel – almost heart-shaped, with multitudinous tubes spiralling hither and thither – many are cracked, and all are broken high up with the effect of trailing off into the air or another dimension. Whatever they might have been connected to is now impossible to envisage. In the heart of the almost-heart is a threaded mass of threads – networks spun from cords and fibres of silver and aquamarine, rose and gold, which trail off into the various tubes, in places looking like compact fairy moss clogging the heart of a dryad or zephyr but in a very healthy sort of manner.</em></p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p>The Assistant Ordinator:<br>How delicious, it really is unspeakable.</p><p>The Ordinator I:<br>We exhumated the whole thing from the bowels of the earth ourselves.</p><p>The Assistant Ordinator:<br>Oh, you mean that hole in the ground in your back garden?</p><p>The Ordinator II:<br>Yes!</p><p>The Assistant Ordinator:<br>Where, pray tell, is Heraldrine, how disappointing that theye are going to miss the-</p></div>



<p class="has-text-align-left">Enter Heraldrine</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left">Heraldrine (looking at the glass vessel):<br>…<br><br>…</p>



<p class="has-text-align-left">………….</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p>Ordinator II:<br>Yes, we knew you’d like it.</p><p>Assistant Ordinator:<br>I think theye are going to faint if you ask me.</p></div>



<p>Often descriptions of uncovering, unearthing and object revelation will centre around the moment of ‘discovery’ or shortly after – a painting being dusted and 300 years of stored up Time and History and Unseen-ness and so on hitting the finder/viewer, or a photograph or a diary issuing a singular chronological heave, a flash of temporal dislocation exposing the now of then (or vice versa), but the actual experience is considerably more prolonged. Sure, there can be that big seismic thwack. But it really comes in waves or trickles slowly. The exertion of then on <em>now</em>. Of now on then on now.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid2.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid2-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid2-300x155.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid2-1024x531.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid2.png 1125w" data-sizes="auto" width="1125" height="583" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>That said, exhumation still comes to my mind because it recalls something of that psychic release – the sensational but also ‘something else-ness’ that happens on say really looking at a photograph that hasn’t been seen for decades – the sense of dredging up a magic that exerts itself on the present, of an object being seen.</p>



<p>As much as these terms come easily because they, at least descriptively, come close to a moment in the process of recovery and verbally sate the way it feels, they could very easily be misread, could figure what I’m describing as a kind of insipid spume – a little rhetorical fancy that in the end means nothing because, say finding a piece of art from several decades ago doesn’t <em>actually</em> do anything to the world… “What the hell is a ‘psychic charge?’” etc. But aside from being constitutionally dull – the flattening of a romantic turn – this reading would be (grievously) incorrect.</p>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Second fragment—</h3>



<p class="has-text-align-left"><em>presumed to be from Act I, Scene II. In which Heraldrine inquires into the nature of the Undines and remembers why theye came to the Undinous court in the days before time choked up entirely</em></p>



<p class="has-text-align-left">Heraldrine, waking up in bed after theire fainting episode, recalls theire Compartment Life – in other words that in-between life, always, running like a green underground stream, was a life no less or more just simply in-between – a realisation which came to them upon looking at the mass of threads on the heart-like glass chamber … theire Compartment Life is Mottine, and upon knowing that she is Mottine, she dons Heraldrine’s favourite jewels, doublet, and so on, and takes herself to the Minor Undine Library – there she browses for several hours before finding what she knew would be there:<br><em>The Memoirs of Mottine Mottine Firrre-Mottine</em></p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p><strong>Thursday, March 3rd</strong><br>I am here. I unpacked my paints today and walked around. It is so cold in the studios. The fountain struck me, and I will have to tell you about it another time. I have to go to meet the other painters and hope they are as I have dreamt they will be.</p></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p><strong>Sunday, April 4th</strong><br>It is a month on (sorry) and I literally weep at the naivety of my last entry. I have made no friends here. Everyone avoids me. Not just because they know what I am but because … I don’t know it is hard to express. It is more than that.</p></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p><strong>Monday, April 5th</strong><br>I have decided to paint the fountain.</p></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p><strong>Tuesday, April 6th</strong><br>A new painter has arrived and has been installed in the studio next to mine. He peeped his head in yesterday and I wanted to die because I thought he seemed so charming, and I knew we would never be friends.</p></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p><strong>Wednesday, May 6th</strong><br>I have made friends with the boy in the next studio. Even in May the studios are so cold, and we spent the day hunting for portable heaters and found some in a basement which no one seems to know exists – perhaps 300 centuries of Things lie there – I mean some real discarded masterpieces and everything but most importantly heaters.</p><p>It is, by the way, a month again since my last entry. So my neighbour: One day – can’t remember when now – shortly after he popped his head in and I wanted to die – I saw him standing in front of the great fountain which is in itself a curiosity. For example, the fountain is of a Rebis (or similar), some ancient god of both sexes or neither, and it is completed in a dark blue stone and plashes away all day and people come and sit on it or throw things in it, occasionally, or sometimes push each other into it, or jump on the ice when it’s frozen reflecting the silver of everything – and yet no one ever comments upon it. It is so clearly a vestige of the Before Times or Between Times. Well, this was the first time I ever saw anyone really taking it in. So I resolved that, when he next popped his head in, if he ever did again, I would ask him about it and show him my painting.</p><p>Well, I waited and waited one day, and nothing, and nothing the next, and looked for him every time I was painting by the fountain. When he finally popped his head in a week on, I basically screamed so loudly he jumped back and his glasses literally fell off his face: “The fountain!”</p><p>And he picked up his glasses and I think, piecing things together, came to look at the painting.</p><p>He told me the story of the undines – who are visible everywhere in this city but only vestiges of vestiges.</p></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p><strong>Thursday, May 41st</strong><br>He spoke to me about something called a recovery play. These were in fact a popular form around 300 years ago – about the point at which things kept getting dredged up and people became adept and Finding Things … the force he said of recovery was so intense people started making plays about them, to process; the force he said was all a matter of material history. That also the Context of these Things became available again and thus so did the form, the perfume of the era or something like this surfaced, so the plays were ways to rediscover the form but let the form operate on the world once more through these objects that had been suppressed or lost … He said during the period of the plays … of repressed histories being allowed to work on the world and this changing history and so on and so forth, Time literally changed. In texture but in other ways. How couldn’t it? He was he said, writing and staging a recovery play. Two actually, one about a recovery play he had found and the other – here I almost died again – about the fountain.</p></div>



<h3 class="wp-block-heading">Fragment</h3>



<p><em>Heraldrine in the night [unreadable] to the display room [unreadable] the arched windows show greenish sky.<br>There the glass object [unreadable] lit by a candle.</em><br><br><em>HERaldine [sic] takes a glass hammer and strikes.</em></p>



<p><em>Heraldrine, surrounded by broken glass touches the interior object and begins to speak. It is as if Heraldrine is reading the threads, finding subtle kinds in the changes of hue and incongruous patterns and weft and so on – rifts like a music score.</em></p>



<p><em>Heraldrine: For example [unreadable] truncated… erased, obscured, buried or simply lost… when in the world again, the form becomes available to us even if simply to talk about the work, to think about the object… experience it. But the … is operating on the world again … in a way that has not been permissible.</em></p>



<p>Here, for example, we learn what? That a herald of the city… came and was made privy to a great constitutional beauty presiding under the land.</p>



<p>That beneath the Undinous city great wefted [unreadable] for nothing and Melded thoroughly to the frothing and still and moving springs and the ore ore ore and black ore</p>



<p>In this book were patterns… ornaments… and illustrations of figures dancing… tapestries of figures dancing… older paintings on walls of peoples dancing in the carvings… in the chambers of the Undinous city to which I came. The undines, which appear in myth and not live here, were people from… who left their brothers and sisters to live with mortals – hence in the myth ‘takes the form of a beautiful man’</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid3.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid3-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid3-300x136.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid3-1024x465.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/shola-elemendid3.png 1375w" data-sizes="auto" width="1375" height="625" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Hence in the myth ‘takes the form of the beautiful woman’</p>



<p>Hence in the myth ‘androgynous’</p>



<p>There’s a scene in a book I’ve never finished, in which the murals start moving over the walls… it’s… ornament… and indeed… early conceptions of ornament as flickering… light sand water to suggest some sort of motion or… the… pattern… grottos, cave walls and so on. And in the grottos – one in particular, was a pool and the grotto nymphs known as grottiness – really an ancient kind of undine swam there and passed in and out of the crystal walls and ate the pearls to remain as they were.</p>


shola veeb preview

The Undinous Court


<p><strong>Jan Verwoert </strong>is a critic and writer on contemporary art and cultural theory. He is a contributing editor of frieze magazine and his writing has appeared in different journals, anthologies and monographs.</p>


Jan Verwoert

komp

From Life. On the work of Anu Põder


<p><strong>Linda Kaljundi</strong> is a professor of cultural history at the Estonian Academy of Arts, a research fellow at Tallinn University, and a curator mainly co-operating with the Kumu Art Museum in Tallinn. She specializes on Baltic and Nordic history, cultural memory and environment, and currently works with the entanglements between art and science in the Eastern Baltic past and present.</p>


Linda Kaljundi

AM10558_G2060-scaled-landscape

Decolonise that – Estonian identity as indigenous and/or white

14 Emilie Saal in collaboration with Andres Saal, Tropical fruit still-life, overpainted photograph, c. 1910-1920. Courtesy of the Estonian Literature Museum

The Terrifying and Mundane Seduction of Orchids


<p><strong>Andreas Kalkun</strong> received his PhD degree in Estonian and Comparative Folklore at the University of Tartu and is currently working as a senior researcher at the Archival Library of the Estonian Literary Museum. His main area of study is the religion and the songs of the Seto women but he has also researched the history of folkloristics, the heritage of obscenities, and the LGBT history in Estonia.</p>


Andreas Kalkun


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-300x300.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-789x788.png 789w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-1014x1013.png 1014w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-1126x1125.png 1126w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod-1351x1350.png 1351w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod.png 1443w" data-sizes="auto" width="1443" height="1442" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jaanus Samma, <em>Pattern no 25</em>, 2021. Crayon, 38&#215;38 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Temnikova &amp; Kasela Gallery</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>At first glance, Jaanus Samma&#8217;s works resemble souvenirs with ethnographic motifs and some even evoke pure nationalist kitsch. This is, of course, a treacherous trap, set for the unsuspecting viewer. The artist seems to approach folk heritage and the past in the most conservative way possible; however, on closer inspection it becomes evident that the national ornament has, in fact, been stripped of pathos and solemnity – under the layer of ethnographic beauty bubbles an explosive mix of provocative questions. Jaanus Samma&#8217;s works have been discussed as homonationalist acts<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1"> Toomistu, T. 15 May 2021. Homonatsionalismi kriipiv visioon. Available at: <a href="https://www.sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c6-kunst/homonatsionalismi-kriipiv-visioon/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">https://www.sirp.ee/s1-artiklid/c6-kunst/homonatsionalismi-kriipiv-visioon/</a></span>, where the queer subject and their desires seem to have been secretly written into the national narrative and history. Indeed, Samma works with archives, historic museology and history and almost produces sugar-coated &#8216;monsters&#8217; to be incorporated into the heteronormative narrative of national history. Yet, these meek additions have the capacity to blow apart the heteronormative power matrix and the glossy images of nationalism.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma-1181x788.jpg 1181w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma-1518x1013.jpg 1518w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma-1685x1125.jpg 1685w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0033-fotoMarjeEelma.jpg 2000w" data-sizes="auto" width="2000" height="1335" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jaanus Samma, <em>Pattern</em>, 2021. Exhibition view. Photo: Marje Eelma</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Personal mythology</h2>



<p>At his recent exhibition (in collaboration with Carlos Motta) <em>Otherness, Desire, the Vernacular</em><sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">Otherness, Desire, the Vernacular. In collaboration with Carlos Motta. 19 November 2021 – 16 January 2022. Curated by Denis Maksimov. Temnikova &amp; Kasela Gallery, Tallinn</span>, Samma exhibited a traditional woven wedding tapestry titled <em>Personal Mythology</em>. The tapestry was created using traditional materials and in the most &#8216;authentic&#8217; way possible – it was woven on anachronistically narrow looms and also includes errors in the pattern. The tapestry was a masterful imitation of a 19th century north Estonian tapestry, used during ritual wedding rides. Alongside traditional trees of life, tankards, churches and the traditional <em>kaheksakand</em> patterns, we also see symbols from the artist&#8217;s previous work. Among other things, the tapestry includes jockstraps, outhouses, a toilet pull, New Year&#8217;s Boys in costumes made of reed, directly and retrospectively referring to Samma&#8217;s earlier work. Instead of the heterosexual married couples usually depicted on wedding blankets, Samma is displaying decorative figures of men without shirts, also present in his earlier project <em>Applied Art for a Gay Club</em>. So, the form of a wedding tapestry is cunningly used to display secret symbols from the artist&#8217;s personal mythology that supposedly undermine heteronormativity in a non-violent manner.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-300x300.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-789x788.png 789w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-1014x1013.png 1014w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-1126x1125.png 1126w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2-1351x1350.png 1351w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod2.png 1443w" data-sizes="auto" width="1443" height="1442" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jaanus Samma, <em>Pattern no 27</em>, 2021. Crayon, 38&#215;38 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Temnikova &amp; Kasela Gallery</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma-1181x788.jpg 1181w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma-1519x1013.jpg 1519w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma-1687x1125.jpg 1687w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/20210505_0133-fotoMarjeEelma.jpg 2000w" data-sizes="auto" width="2000" height="1334" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jaanus Samma, <em>Pattern</em>, 2021. Exhibition view (detail). Photo: Marje Eelma</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Noble and dirty patterns</h2>



<p>At the exhibition <em>Pattern</em>, Samma exhibited 19th century coifs (<em>tanu</em>), on loan from the Estonian National Museum, side by side with drawings and embroidery inspired by the headwear. With these works, Samma continues exploring the hidden cruising culture and fetishes in gay communities, also present in his previous projects. Here, the focus is on men&#8217;s underwear and jockstraps, provocatively decorated with perfectly executed national floral embroidery. The coif signalled the wearer to be a married woman – Estonian peasant women had to wear these daily as a symbol of that status. Furthermore, as part of a wedding ritual, the freshly married woman was slapped on the head or in the face with the coif and told, ‘…forget sleep and remember your husband!’ The beautifully embroidered coif was a sign that the woman was no longer single, and moreover, it was also meant to remind her of her position within that union at all times.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-300x300.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-1024x1024.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-789x788.png 789w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-1014x1013.png 1014w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-1126x1125.png 1126w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3-1351x1350.png 1351w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/jaanussamma_fotod3.png 1443w" data-sizes="auto" width="1443" height="1442" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jaanus Samma, <em>Pattern no 19</em>, 2020. Crayon, watercolour, 38&#215;38 cm. Courtesy of the artist and Temnikova &amp; Kasela Gallery</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>These embroidered patterns, created by illiterate women are the only letters we have of them. We could say that these patterns are essentially and specifically &#8216;Estonian&#8217;, but obviously, international fashions have not left the work of these women untouched either. These baroque floral patterns, originally from north Estonia, acquired strong nationalist associations only later on, at the beginning of the 20th century, when the Estonian National Museum acquired the most aesthetic and &#8216;authentically Estonian&#8217; examples of garments for their collections and these became known as folk dress. The founders of the museum hoped that based on the items they collected, local artists and applied artists could develop an idiosyncratic Estonian national style. With a layover as a tool for the Estonian authoritarian regime of the 1930s, these patterns also made it into art of the Stalinist era and are still represented in conservative nationalist applied art in full glory today.</p>



<p>Looking from a distance, Jaanus Samma&#8217;s dignified flower motif wreath drawings would fit well in both the castle of Konstantin Päts, the authoritarian president of Estonia, as well as a Stalinist palace of culture; however, taking a closer look, we see that this is not sincere national kitsch after all. What meanings emerge when patterns stolen from the coifs of married women come to decorate jockstraps as part of the hidden heritage of gay culture? Is this a homonationalist incursion into the heritage of Estonian national ethnography or the grief of the queer subject recently declared incapable of marriage<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="3" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162">3</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_162" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="3">In November 2021, the Legal Affairs Committee of the Estonian Parliament released a statement regarding the current Family Law in Estonia, saying that it is not discriminatory as it does not prohibit marriage to anyone who is capable of marriage. The capability, however, is defined by the Family Law, which states that marriage is concluded between a man and a woman. With this statement, the Legal Affairs Committee essentially declared anyone in a non-heterosexual relationship incapable of marriage. (– Ed.)</span>, and dipped in glamour?</p>


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Sickly-Sweet Monsters at the Ethnography Museum


<p><strong>Brit Pavelson</strong> is a graphic designer based in Tallinn, Estonia. Her work is currently driven by decorative practices in graphic design, for their healing power, sustainability potential and vessels for intuitive storytelling.</p>


Brit Pavelson


<p><em>Market Values</em> is a search for an aesthetic expression that is situated in a space between the post-Soviet legacy, rich folk craft traditions, inborn admiration for modernism and an uncritical adoration of Scandinavian minimalism. Working on this project has been a long brewing process, reminding me of making what my family calls <em>ümbermajatee</em> or outside-the-house- tea. This tea has no set formula, it is made by simply pouring hot water on any aromatic weed you can find outside your house in the summer. <em>Ümbermajatee</em> is utterly seasonal and coincidental but also strongly situated in its surroundings. The tea is a bit different every day. It does not subscribe to any recipe or specific historical background; it is not credited to anyone in particular and is created by simply observing what is mulling around me. Offline and outside. The following pages are posters made in 2020 that have been reformatted for magazine pages in 2022. You can find more at <a href="http://www.marketvalues.ee" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">www.marketvalues.ee</a> or find me online <a href="http://pafkabrit" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">@pafkabrit</a>.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-300x199.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-1190x788.jpg 1190w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-1529x1013.jpg 1529w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-1698x1125.jpg 1698w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-2038x1350.jpg 2038w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-2718x1800.jpg 2718w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-2973x1969.jpg 2973w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell-1-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1696" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-300x196.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-1024x669.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-1205x788.jpg 1205w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-1550x1013.jpg 1550w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-1721x1125.jpg 1721w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-2065x1350.jpg 2065w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-2754x1800.jpg 2754w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-3012x1969.jpg 3012w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/28.02.kissell2-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1674" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-300x199.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-1190x788.jpg 1190w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-1529x1013.jpg 1529w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-1698x1125.jpg 1698w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-2038x1350.jpg 2038w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-2718x1800.jpg 2718w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-2973x1969.jpg 2973w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.033-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1696" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-300x199.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-1024x678.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-1190x788.jpg 1190w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-1529x1013.jpg 1529w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-1698x1125.jpg 1698w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-2038x1350.jpg 2038w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-2718x1800.jpg 2718w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-2973x1969.jpg 2973w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/ajakiri_29.034-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1696" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


ma_vc_brit_pavelson_1

Market Values


<p><strong>Piret Karro</strong> is a cultural critic and curator based in Tallinn. Her academic background lies in Gender Studies and Semiotics, and she is currently the Head of Exhibitions at Vabamu museum.</p>


Piret Karro


<p><strong>Hanna Samoson</strong> explores the boundaries of art and tries to perceive the unknown. Being in constant motion as an intuitive creator, her work is characterized by quick and spontaneous decisions. Since the beginning of 2022, he has been searching for her dream along the 2222 islands belonging to Estonia.</p>


Hanna Samoson


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-684x1024.jpg 684w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-526x788.jpg 526w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-677x1013.jpg 677w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-751x1125.jpg 751w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-902x1350.jpg 902w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-1202x1800.jpg 1202w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1-1315x1969.jpg 1315w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/teine1.jpg 1416w" data-sizes="auto" width="1416" height="2120" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Photo: Hanna Samoson</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Diana Tamane is an artist from Riga, Latvia, currently based in Tartu, Estonia. In her practice, she explores the line between the intimate and the artistic, using photos, drawings and videos from her family archives or images created in dialogue with her family members. Her recent exhibitions include <em>Antibiography</em> at the Centre d&#8217;Art Maristany, Spain, <em>Allied</em> at the Kyiv Biennial 2021, and <em>Flower Smugglers</em> as part of the Frame of Sopot Photography Festival, Poland. Her artist book <em>Flower Smuggler</em> received the Author’s Book Award at Recontres d’Arles and was shortlisted for the Aperture First Photobook Awards in 2020. Perhaps this work is a good example of her practice – Tamane used photographs her grandmother had taken of the flowers she had either grown in her garden or had been gifted and combined these with a story of her grandmother being denied passage across the Latvian-Russian border with flowers she wanted to bring to her grandfather’s grave in an area annexed from Latvia by the USSR in 1945. Through combining the personal with the political, Tamane has a unique way of shining light on geopolitical realities through the lived experiences of ordinary people, her close ones. We meet on my 31st birthday and one day after her 36th birthday, over a table of tulips and cake in her home in Tartu, to discuss how she feels about her art being read as feminist, women’s power, and the turning point from trauma to healing that has provoked a change in her artistic position.</p>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>How is the cake?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>It’s really good, thank you! So, there is even a birthday cake this year. Now the day is complete.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>You were telling me about how you didn’t speak Estonian when you came to Tartu Art School, so you felt like your works needed to speak for themselves. How did it happen that you are still living here 15 years later?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>I started studying in an art school in Latvia when I was 12. There, I took academic drawing, painting and sculpture, but in the last year we also had a photography class. I fell in love with the process of developing in the dark room. I would stay late and lose track of time. After I graduated from high school, Tartu Art College seemed like a good option, as there was nowhere to study photography in Latvia. After moving to Tartu, I travelled a lot and lived in different countries. For a year I went to Portugal as an Erasmus student, then moved to Barcelona to do an internship. After I graduated from Tartu, I moved to Brussels for my master’s degree and continued at HISK’s (Hoger Instituut Voor Schone Kunsten – Vlaanderen) art residency programme for two years in Ghent. I was planning to stay in Belgium because it was going well. I had received several awards and grants, but at some point, I realised they don’t really need me there. There are so many artists in Belgium already. For some reason, I never allowed myself to consider going back to Estonia. Then one day I realised I could, and I felt such relief, so I packed my stuff and left. Here it’s different, there is space to evolve and it feels like home at the moment.</p></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block aligncenter"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-684x1024.jpg 684w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-526x788.jpg 526w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-677x1013.jpg 677w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-751x1125.jpg 751w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-902x1350.jpg 902w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-1202x1800.jpg 1202w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001-1315x1969.jpg 1315w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/diana001.jpg 1416w" data-sizes="auto" width="1416" height="2120" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Photo: Hanna Samoson</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>How come you felt you could go back to Estonia, and not to Latvia?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>It’s like I had two lives. Before I was 20 and after. I cannot imagine that I would go back to Latvia. When I arrived in Tartu, I immediately felt in sync with the city, like its rhythm and my own were moving at the same pace.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>Looking at some of your works, I started thinking about the misogynist attitude that prioritises the “official” history, often written by men – an example of this is monuments of men on horses, whereas small personal details like family photos or diaries remain less visible. For example, looking at the photo series Family Portrait depicting your mother’s lineage, or the work Blood Pressure showing your great grandmother’s notes documenting her blood pressure readings on the backs of the photos from her personal album. Many of these items might look insignificant, but they are important to someone. Do you find yourself conflicted about crossing the boundary between a photograph as your grandmother’s personal item and exhibiting it as a piece of art?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>Daily rituals take a lot of time and have great importance in our lives. They can be considered insignificant by some, but it’s what really carries us. As an artist you are like a magician. It is here [<em>points as if at an object</em>] but it doesn’t mean anything. As an artist, I take it, bring it, let’s say into a white cube – and it is like baptizing it, the object becomes sacred.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>Regarding personal rituals, did your birthday yesterday have any special meaning for you?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>I started the day in the way I wish more days would start – slowly, with warm lemon water, meditation, reading, and afterwards I went to a 5Rhythm dance class. In the evening, my friend came over for dinner. I would love it if this year was about slowing down, connecting to things and people who bring me joy.</p><p>I want to do things differently, to be a better friend to myself. Sometimes we know what we should do, but it hasn’t yet settled into our system, into our body. But now I feel some things are settling down for me. I mean I can still push myself sometimes, but I really have started to feel that always running somewhere is violence against myself.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>A lot of your work is auto-biographical or auto-ethnographic; it includes conversations with your family or observes your father in the garden. Among other things, these are feminist methods. Some of your work is probably read as feminist art. How do you feel about that?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>I prefer not to be put into a box, any box. Of course, I am feminist, but that’s not the place I make my work from. My fear is that when we say it’s a feminist work then people don’t see that there are so many other layers. But I am interested in women&#8217;s experiences and want to tell stories about women in a way that would support them. I’ve sometimes had an issue with the feminist vibe – in my eyes it creates a division between men and women. But it is time to take responsibility and acknowledge that both men as well as women have contributed to the patriarchal system. Of course, there are the sad statistics that every fourth woman has experienced physical or sexual abuse and we carry these traumas in our bodies. Most of us have trauma, personal or collective. We can stick with it, but we can also choose to let it go. It’s time for women to appreciate themselves. We can do a lot, we can give birth, we can have careers, be artists, healers, truck drivers like my mother, and I think women’s choices need to be honoured. A woman should also be supported if she chooses to be around the kitchen and raise children.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>That statement is also feminist.</p></div><div class="answer"><p>Yeah, it is.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p><em>We wanted to talk about women. What are your latest revelations regarding being a woman?</em></p></div><div class="answer"><p>In recent years, I’ve realised that honouring the cycle is important. The daily cycles, seasons of the year and the menstrual cycle – through these we connect to nature and to ourselves. Based on what I have experienced and what I have also heard from my female friends, issues around menstruation were never discussed with us by our mothers or were talked about in a negative way. But I think it’s a gateway to our power and a place of wisdom. It used to be something that I never paid attention to. Now I have a different approach. It’s like you have these four phases [<em>menstruation, follicular phase, ovulation, luteal phase</em> – P.K.] connected to the seasons, there are phases when we must rest and when we are more productive and I try to respect that. There are times we are invited to go inwards and times when we are more communicative and open. It is very interesting for me to navigate all that, how at some point I am overwhelmed by a range of emotions, everything comes to the surface, it can feel dark and deep, but then I look at what my body wants to tell me: what needs my attention, what needs change. Maybe not every woman feels this, but I personally feel those phases strongly.</p></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-684x1024.jpg 684w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-526x788.jpg 526w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-677x1013.jpg 677w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-751x1125.jpg 751w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-902x1350.jpg 902w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-1202x1800.jpg 1202w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim-1315x1969.jpg 1315w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/taim.jpg 1416w" data-sizes="auto" width="1416" height="2120" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Photo: Hanna Samoson</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>You have exhibitions coming up at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) in Tallinn and at Tartu Art Museum and Kogo gallery in Tartu. You mentioned that you feel like you are at a turning point as an artist. Could you tell me more about that?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>In a way, my upcoming exhibitions at EKKM and Kogo gallery summarise my practice of the last decade. The EKKM exhibition Typology of Touch summarises the works related to the female lineage of my family, which have been completed during the last 12 years. At Kogo gallery, I will show my latest project <em>Under the Same Sky</em>. It’s an installation and a documentary film about three generations of women – the grandmother Tamara, who was born in Ukraine; the mother Irina, born in the Latvian SSR; and the daughter Sonya, who is half-Korean and grew up in Spain. For the last 17 years, the family has been living in the tourist city of Fuengirola in Costa del Sol, Spain.</p><p>But these days I am making more intuitive work. For example, I make drawings which are partly based on meditation and breathwork – I synchronise my breath with my drawing, I am interested in the use of the psychosomatic method in art.</p><p>I used to be interested in some sort of tension. Now I feel another kind of energy and perhaps I can start a new chapter. I would like to be more present, and to communicate more joy for life. I remember a long time ago a friend of mine said something about Louise Bourgeois: “You know it’s sad that she held on to her pain until the end”. It’s important to let go of things that do not serve us, to be transformed as humans and see where it brings us as artists.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>Would you say that your previous work was created from a place of trauma?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>I like what curator Martin Germann said about family in relation to my work: “It is a room or matrix we will never leave, and if we escape it, we inevitably escape in relation to it.” It’s a way of dealing with certain issues and finding a way to communicate. For me this became my language for speaking to them, it opened communication between us.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>So, you feel that art is your language to speak not only to the art audience but to your family as well?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>Yes, it’s like a thread that facilitates connection. It’s my love language.</p></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-1024x684.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-1180x788.jpg 1180w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-1516x1013.jpg 1516w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-1684x1125.jpg 1684w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-2021x1350.jpg 2021w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-2695x1800.jpg 2695w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-2948x1969.jpg 2948w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/002-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1710" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Photo: Hanna Samoson</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


From Family Photo Albums to the White Cube – Interview with Diana Tamane

Helgi Saldo2021 Fotograaf Kristina Kuzemko @z.o.lo.to

Searching for a label: The New East


<h2 class="wp-block-heading">TOP PICKS</h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-300x169.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-1400x788.jpg 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-1800x1013.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-2000x1125.jpg 2000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-2400x1350.jpg 2400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-3000x1688.jpg 3000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-3500x1969.jpg 3500w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/10-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1440" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Tallinn Art Hall will open in a new location</h3><div class="location01"><p>Lasnamäe Pavilion (Lindakivi square), Tallinn</p></div><div class="description01"><p>While Tallinn Art Hall’s historical building is being renovated, the Art Hall will open in a new location in the district of Lasnamäe in Autumn 2022. The highlights of the 2022 programme include <em>Barricading the Ice Sheets</em>, an exhibition by Oliver Ressler (curated by Corina L. Apostol, 27 August – 6 November) still in the historical building, and a group show <em>Is There Hope for Lovely Creatures?</em> (curator: Tamara Luuk, 26 November – 5 February) in the new locationn.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">An overview of Estonian art of the 2000s</h3><div class="location02"><p>Kumu Art Museum, Tallinn</p><p>Until 10 October </p></div><div class="description02"><p>The exhibition Art in the Comfort Zone? The 2000s in Estonian Art offers insights into the art of the noughties. The exhibition is curated by Eha Komissarov and Triin Tulgiste.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-195x300.jpg 195w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-666x1024.jpg 666w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-512x788.jpg 512w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-658x1013.jpg 658w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-731x1125.jpg 731w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita-878x1350.jpg 878w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170x1800-raamita.jpg 1170w" data-sizes="auto" width="1170" height="1800" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Herkki-Erich Merila, Arbo Tammiksaar. <em>Welcome to Estonia 2002</em>, Tartu Art Museum</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Diana Tamane solo shows Typology of Touch and Half Love </h3><div class="location01"><p>Typology of Touch, EKKM, 14 April – 5 June (Tallinn)<br>Half Love, Tartu Art Museum, 17 June – 16 October (Tartu)</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Artist Diana Tamane presents two solo shows simultaneously at EKKM in Tallinn, and Tartu Art Museum in Tartu. Tamane often uses her family members and herself as the leading characters in her work. The personal dimension in stories about Eastern European life allows for generalizations about how identity in the region has been shaped during the transitional period. </p></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">RECOMMENDED</h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Agents of Perception</h3><div class="location01"><p>Kai Art Center, Tallinn<br>9 April – 26 June </p></div><div class="description01"><p>The exhibition presents six artists – the German <em>ars viva prize</em> winners for 2022, Lewis Hammond, Tamina Amadyar and Mooni Perry, and three remarkable emerging artists from the Baltic region Laura Põld, Anastasia Sosunova and Janis Dzirnieks. The curator of the exhibition is Maria Helen Känd.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Pine-fulness</h3><div class="location02"><p>Vana-Võromaa Culture House Gallery, Võru<br>6 May – 26 June </p></div><div class="description02"><p>The exhibition deals with the relationship between Estonians and their natural environment. Using bitter humour and sustainable gestures, the show attempts to raise awareness of the impact of today’s actions on our dream future. The exhibition is curated by Siim Preiman (Tallinn Art Hall).</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Group exhibition Where is the Body</h3><div class="location01"><p>Narva Art Residency, Narva<br>7 May – 8 June </p></div><div class="description01"><p>Taking place in two chapters in Vienna and Narva, the exhibition initiates dialogues between a generation of upcoming artists, while aiming to find common ground within the diverse scope of contemporary painterly expressions. The show is curated by Lilian Hiob and Julius Pristauz.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Curatorial show by Jurriaan Benschop</h3><div class="location02"><p>Kogo gallery, Tartu<br>30 June – 27 August</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The show, curated by Jurriaan Benschop with artists Veronika Hilger (Munich), Milla Aska (Helsinki) and Paula Zarina-Zemane (Riga), introduces three contemporary painters.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-scaled.jpeg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-150x150.jpeg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-300x168.jpeg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-1024x575.jpeg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-1400x786.jpeg 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-1800x1010.jpeg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-2000x1122.jpeg 2000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-2400x1347.jpeg 2400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/04/Diana-Tamane_Family-Portrait_video-still-scaled.jpeg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1436" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Diana Tamane, <em>Family Portrait</em>. Video still</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">VIII Artishok Biennial </h3><div class="location01"><p>Tallinn Botanical Garden, Tallinn<br>29 September – 30 October</p></div><div class="description01"><p>8th Artishok Biennial, curated by Ann Mirjam Vaikla, brings together 10 international artists and 10 art critics at the botanical garden, which will become the site of and for collective learning/unlearning for the invited participants. During the opening marathon 10 commissioned artworks will be presented, each of them accompanied by newly written critical texts. The final exhibition and collection of texts offers visitors 100 different ways to interpret the artworks and their artists.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Solo show by Taavi Suisalu Attention Figures</h3><div class="location02"><p>EKKM, Tallinn<br>27 August – 16 October</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The largest solo show of Tallinn based artist Taavi Suisalu deals with the changing self-image in the era of algorithmic imagination, attention economy and rapidly developing technologies.</p></div></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">BEYOND</h2>



<p><em>When visiting Estonia, it is easy to plan a short visit to Helsinki (2-hour ferry ride from Tallinn) or Riga (4-hour bus ride from Tallinn or Tartu)</em></p>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Estonian artists in dialogue with the Helsinki Art Museum collection</h3><div class="location01"><p>Helsinki Art Museum HAM, Helsinki<br>2 February – 29 May</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Curator Denis Maksimov has invited five Estonian artists to each respond to a work from the HAM collection by choosing an existing artwork of their own to be exhibited alongside the collection piece.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Kiasma, the contemporary art museum in Helsinki, reopens with ARS22</h3><div class="location02"><p>Kiasma Art Museum, Helsinki<br>8 April – 16 October</p></div><div class="description02"><p>Extending to all floors of the Kiasma building, exhibition is a comprehensive view of the latest trends in international contemporary art. The exhibition culminates in autumn 2022 with the Lithuanian participatory opera <em>Sun and Sea</em>.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">International art festival SURVIVAL KIT 13 – The little bird must be caught</h3><div class="location01"><p>2 September – 9 October<br>Various locations in Riga</p></div><div class="description01"><p>The annual art festival SURVIVAL KIT will this year be inspired by the title of a poem by Ojārs Vācietis. The poem, forever timely, directs us towards questions related to free speech, the power of the voice and the vocal, the role of the sonic in resistance, revolution and dissent, and those that wish to silence such voices.</p></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>


Herkki-Erich-Merila-Arbo-Tammiksaar.-Welcome-to-Estonia-2002-Tartu-Art-Museum-1170×1800 raamita

Your guide to Estonia and beyond 2022

Shifting Timelines kaas


<p>Timelines 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.</p>



<p>Art 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. <strong>Eha Komissarov</strong>, 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 <strong>Concordia Klar</strong>, whose Surrealism influenced works are increasingly being highlighted again and for the first time ever, her poems have now been translated into English.</p>



<p>Alongside 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. <strong>Mari Vallikivi</strong>’s and <strong>Thomas Röske</strong>’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 <strong>Brigit Arop</strong> highlights how small initiatives weave themselves into the institutionalised art world.</p>



<p>Massive 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. <strong>Aro Velmet</strong> 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.</p>



<p>On 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. <strong>Kaarin Kivirähk</strong> 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 <strong>Angela Maasalu</strong> and <strong>Jaak Juske</strong> lay outside historical, mythological and contemporary narratives that are deeply enmeshed in the psychological and physical space of the city.</p>



<p>In 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-300x202.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-1024x688.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-1172x788.jpg 1172w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-1507x1013.jpg 1507w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-1673x1125.jpg 1673w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-2008x1350.jpg 2008w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-2677x1800.jpg 2677w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-2929x1969.jpg 2929w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Final_illu-veebi-1-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1721" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Illustration: Martina Gofman &amp; Johanna Ruukholm, <em>Shifting Timelines</em>, 2023</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-211x300.jpg 211w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-721x1024.jpg 721w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-555x788.jpg 555w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-713x1013.jpg 713w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-792x1125.jpg 792w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-950x1350.jpg 950w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-1267x1800.jpg 1267w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-1386x1969.jpg 1386w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm57102_g30115_klar_c_hype_maandumiseta_edf0254-VEEBI-scaled.jpg 1801w" data-sizes="auto" width="1801" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Concordia Klar, <em>Jump Without Landing</em>, 1971. Soft ground. Art Museum of Estonia</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Worry-strips on eyelashes,<br>worry-strips on eyelashes.</p>



<p>Crisscrossing fir roots<br>over a cascade of light,<br>clover’s crosses<br>over a work still to write.</p>



<p>Frost molds discs<br>in moments’ mute fall –<br>it is not that, before which<br>sinks nightly a fiery ball.</p>



<p>The path twisted and turned,<br>rays scattered about,<br>the aroma of decaying leaves.</p>



<p>Time walks swiftly, spurred,<br>holding our debt in its hands.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-300x234.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-1024x799.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-1010x788.jpg 1010w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-1299x1013.jpg 1299w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-1442x1125.jpg 1442w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-1731x1350.jpg 1731w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-2308x1800.jpg 2308w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-2524x1969.jpg 2524w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm20121_g11532_klar_c_v4ljaspool_tuisku_edd3005_-VEEBI-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1997" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Concordia Klar, <em>Safe from the Snowdrift</em>, 1978. Vernis mou. Art Museum of Estonia</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p class="has-text-align-right">Clouds remain, paths remain, you are gone.<br>Left is the ground, left are the flowers, but you are not.<br>Wind carries the dandelion tufts from blossomed yearnings.<br>I read it all in faces gazed upon – I reckon this must be freedom.<br>And from a simple person I turn into a detailed construction,<br>from maybe a single opportunity I sing with the wind in unison,<br>sinking as metal into concrete.<br>Brittle teeth crumble from the mouth of time.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-257x300.jpg 257w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-876x1024.jpg 876w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-674x788.jpg 674w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-867x1013.jpg 867w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-963x1125.jpg 963w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-1155x1350.jpg 1155w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-1540x1800.jpg 1540w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-1685x1969.jpg 1685w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm18254_g10954_klar_c_viibisin_vilet_puhuma_l_000095-VEEBI-scaled.jpg 2190w" data-sizes="auto" width="2190" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Concordia Klar, <em>Staying to Blow the Whistle</em>, 1976. Soft Ground. Art Museum of Estonia</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-300x239.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-1024x816.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-988x788.jpg 988w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-1271x1013.jpg 1271w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-1411x1125.jpg 1411w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-1693x1350.jpg 1693w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-2258x1800.jpg 2258w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-2470x1969.jpg 2470w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/ekm16678_g10674_klar_c_m4ng_l_000104-VEEBI-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2041" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Concordia Klar, <em>Play</em>, 1974. Soft ground. Art Museum of Estonia</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p></p></div>


Two Poems by Concordia Klar

Fight as much as you have strength for. Interview with Eha Komissarov


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-225x300.png 225w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-767x1024.png 767w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-591x788.png 591w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-759x1013.png 759w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-843x1125.png 843w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-1012x1350.png 1012w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-1349x1800.png 1349w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3-1476x1969.png 1476w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_3.png 1496w" data-sizes="auto" width="1496" height="1996" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Maarjamäe Memorial. Photo: Tõnu Tunnel </figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>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 polite company. Owing to public pressure, universities have renamed buildings, and museums have been recontextualising their collections.&nbsp;</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-300x225.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-1051x788.jpg 1051w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-1351x1013.jpg 1351w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-1500x1125.jpg 1500w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-1800x1350.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-2400x1800.jpg 2400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-2625x1969.jpg 2625w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/AMNH_Roosevelt_memorial_plaque-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1920" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Plaque memorializing Theodore Roosevelt, at the Roosevelt Memorial in front of the American Museum of Natural History. This plaque replaced the Equestrian Statue of Theodore Roosevelt, which stood on this spot from 1940 until 2022. Photo:  Mitchell Golden</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Monuments 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.</p>



<p>Yet 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”.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-214x300.png 214w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-729x1024.png 729w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-561x788.png 561w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-721x1013.png 721w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-801x1125.png 801w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-961x1350.png 961w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8-1282x1800.png 1282w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamae_8.png 1362w" data-sizes="auto" width="1362" height="1913" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Maarjamäe Memorial. Photo: Tõnu Tunnel </figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Indeed, 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.</p>



<p>Second, 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.</p>



<p>Third, 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.&nbsp;</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block aligncenter"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smartcrop.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smartcrop-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smartcrop-300x188.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smartcrop-1024x640.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smartcrop-1261x788.png 1261w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/smartcrop.png 1344w" data-sizes="auto" width="1344" height="840" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Neutral grave plate to replace Soviet monuments, 2022. Design: Kirke Kangro </figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>The 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.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Critics 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 <em>Tenet</em> than a Soviet memorial to World War II. In any case, the memory politics of the Baltic memorials resist a single interpretation.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-675x1013.jpg 675w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/3394_Skulptuur_Kivijuri_Taniloo_Sirp_1966.jpg 1200w" data-sizes="auto" width="1200" height="1800" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Kivi-Jüri. Endel Taniloo and Ülo Sirp, 1966. Photo: Creative Commons</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Finally, 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.</p>



<p>By 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.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The 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.</p>


A Strange Decolonisation – Monument Wars in the Baltics

Timelines in Transit. Where Do We Go from Here?


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lovi-1.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lovi-1-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lovi-1-177x300.png 177w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lovi-1-464x788.png 464w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/lovi-1.png 489w" data-sizes="auto" width="489" height="831" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The city of dragons</strong></h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-139x300.png 139w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-474x1024.png 474w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-365x788.png 365w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-469x1013.png 469w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-520x1125.png 520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-625x1350.png 625w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-833x1800.png 833w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1-911x1969.png 911w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon-1.png 1021w" data-sizes="auto" width="1021" height="2207" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>In 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.</p>



<p>But 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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The house of the devil&#8217;s wedding</strong></h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/grinch-copy.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/grinch-copy-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/grinch-copy-252x300.png 252w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/grinch-copy-661x788.png 661w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/grinch-copy.png 803w" data-sizes="auto" width="803" height="957" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>The 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.&nbsp;</p>



<p>According 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.</p>



<p>The 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.</p>



<p>Around 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&#8217;s wedding. And so we know that, at least once, the devil has held a party in Tallinn.</p>



<p>On the facade of the same house, behind the leftmost window of the second floor we can see&nbsp; 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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Phantoms and stones from the heavens</strong></h2>



<p>There 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 &#8220;phantom&#8221; and &#8220;phantom bog&#8221; 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block aligncenter"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kasi-copy-4.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kasi-copy-4-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kasi-copy-4-300x93.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kasi-copy-4-1024x316.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kasi-copy-4-1400x432.png 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/kasi-copy-4.png 1508w" data-sizes="auto" width="1508" height="465" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The monster of Nõmme</strong></h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon_2-1.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon_2-1-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon_2-1-300x167.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon_2-1-1024x570.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/draakon_2-1.png 1122w" data-sizes="auto" width="1122" height="625" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>There 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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>The bloody sites of Soviet terror</strong></h2>



<p>Sites 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ussike-copy.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ussike-copy-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ussike-copy-300x252.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ussike-copy-938x788.png 938w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/ussike-copy.png 1025w" data-sizes="auto" width="1025" height="861" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>In 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.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>In 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&#8217; 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-300x198.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-1024x676.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-1194x788.jpg 1194w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-1534x1013.jpg 1534w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-1704x1125.jpg 1704w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-2045x1350.jpg 2045w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-2727x1800.jpg 2727w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-2983x1969.jpg 2983w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Angela_koletiste_kaart-copy-1-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1690" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


Mapping Monsters


<p></p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-185x300.jpg 185w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-632x1024.jpg 632w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-487x788.jpg 487w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-626x1013.jpg 626w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-695x1125.jpg 695w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-834x1350.jpg 834w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-1112x1800.jpg 1112w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-1216x1969.jpg 1216w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Hermen-Rode-workshop.-VEEBI1-scaled.jpg 1581w" data-sizes="auto" width="1581" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Hermen Rode workshop. Saint Jerome, detail from the predella of the retable of the high altar of St. Nicholas Church, Tallinn. Ca 1478-1481. Tempera, oil on wood. Estonian Art Museum.<br></figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>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 <em>The Milk of Dreams</em> 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 <em>the Other</em>, whether the fantastical creatures of faraway lands or hybrid visions of the future?</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-240x300.jpg 240w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-630x788.jpg 630w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-810x1013.jpg 810w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-900x1125.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-1080x1350.jpg 1080w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-1439x1800.jpg 1439w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-1575x1969.jpg 1575w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Rauna-church-photo_-Stanislav-Stepasko-copy-scaled.jpg 2047w" data-sizes="auto" width="2047" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Snake with a woman’s head on a carved stone depicting the fall of man in Rauna church, early 16th century. Photo: Stanislav Stepaško</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Fantastic vs real</strong></h2>



<p>Things 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 <em>human tails</em> 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.</p>



<p>It 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 <em>known</em> 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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Contemporary <em>memento mori</em></strong></h2>



<p>Tallinn-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 <em>Vox Populi </em>(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 <em>memento mori</em>, 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 (<em>Good Old Times</em>, 2021) or brought ghostly human figures to a busy art fair, with snakes inside their bodies (<em>Good, Bad, Ugly</em>, 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-675x1013.jpg 675w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-1200x1800.jpg 1200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele-1313x1969.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/edith-detail-hele.jpg 1340w" data-sizes="auto" width="1340" height="2010" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Edith Karlson, <em>Vox Popouli</em>, detail, 2016, Photo: Anu Vahtra</figcaption1><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-675x1013.jpg 675w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-1200x1800.jpg 1200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-1313x1969.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/7_MG_3088-VEEBI-scaled.jpg 1706w" data-sizes="auto" width="1706" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Edith Karlson, <em>Vox Popouli</em>, exhibition view, 2016, Photo: Anu Vahtra</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Imagining the future</strong></h2>



<p>Finding 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/20-Xarcadia-exhibition-view-2022-photo-Roman-Sten-Tonissoo-VEEBI-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1706" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Kadri-Liis Rääk, <em>Xarcadia</em>, exhibition view, 2022, Photo: Roman-Sten Tõnissoo</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Contemporary 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 <em>The Milk of Dreams</em>, 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 <em>Man</em> and the other <em>others</em> 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 <em>Xarcadia</em> 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.”</p>



<p>In 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Wiktoria-Walendzick.-Bathtub-with-an-Octopus-2022.-Mixed-media.-Installation-view-at-Zacheta-Gallery-Warsaw.-Photo_-Tytus-Szabelski-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Wiktoria Walendzik, <em>Bathtub with an Octopus</em>, 2022, mixed media. Installation view at Zachęta Gallery, Warsaw. Photo: Tytus Szabelski</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


Unknown Creatures of Faraway Lands

Process > result, or notes on running a project space for those who need a sign to start one


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-203x300.jpg 203w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-691x1024.jpg 691w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-532x788.jpg 532w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-684x1013.jpg 684w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-760x1125.jpg 760w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad-912x1350.jpg 912w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Heiki_Saga_Kirikud-ja-korrusmajad.jpg 1102w" data-sizes="auto" width="1102" height="1632" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Heiki Säga. Churches and Towerblocks, 2022. Kondas Centre Collection </figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>In-between systems and services</strong></h2>



<p>Outsider art or <em>art brut</em> 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)<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1817"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1817">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1817" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">The duty to work in accordance with ability was applied to people in institutional care before the Soviet period as well.</span>. 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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Establishing a centre</strong></h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-211x300.jpg 211w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-722x1024.jpg 722w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-555x788.jpg 555w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-714x1013.jpg 714w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-793x1125.jpg 793w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-952x1350.jpg 952w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3-1269x1800.jpg 1269w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_Too_ja_puhkus-3.jpg 1292w" data-sizes="auto" width="1292" height="1833" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Ingrid Kivimeister, Work and Leisure, 2016. Kondas Centre Collection</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>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&#8217;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<sub><sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1817"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1817">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1817" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">In the Estonian context, the expression &#8220;supported artist&#8221; is tentative and somewhat misleading, since the care system generally lacks professional instructors.</span></sub> were shown in the museum already in 2004 and 2005.<em> </em>Before 2018 <em>art brut</em> 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 <em>Offending the Medusa</em>. 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 <em>Offending the Medusa</em>, no systematic research into outsider art was done until 2017.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1.jpg" data-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" data-sizes="auto" width="1000" height="707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jüri Karpov, Abstraction I, 2017. Kondas Centre Collection</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>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 &#8220;centenary art programme&#8221; and &#8220;art exhibition&#8221; 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 &#8220;they will make new ones&#8221; 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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block aligncenter"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST.jpg" data-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" data-sizes="auto" width="933" height="812" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Lembar Linder, United States of EST, 2003. Kondas Centre Collection</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-142x300.jpg 142w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-484x1024.jpg 484w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-372x788.jpg 372w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-479x1013.jpg 479w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-532x1125.jpg 532w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-638x1350.jpg 638w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-851x1800.jpg 851w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided-931x1969.jpg 931w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Ingrid_Kivimeister_suhtlemispildid_Riided.jpg 1000w" data-sizes="auto" width="1000" height="2116" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Ingrid Kivimeister, Communication image: Clothes, 2016. Kondas Centre Collection</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Artists’ stories</strong></h2>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>



<p>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.</p>


The Bumpy Road of Estonian Outsider Art


<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Piecing together a lost history</strong></h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p>By Mari Vallikivi</p></div>



<p>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 (<em>Altklinikum Bergheim</em>) at Heidelberg University.</p>



<p>Among 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 &#8220;extremely troublesome&#8221;&nbsp;<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">Allik, J. 2022. <em>Eesti psühholoogia lugu</em>. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 66.</span>, 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 Russification<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">In 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.</span> 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 <em>dementia praecox</em> (contemporary term: schizophrenia).<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="3" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749">3</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="3">Allik, J. 2022. <em>Eesti psühholoogia lugu</em>. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 68</span> 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.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There 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 <em>If you could understand something from the dreams you had?</em> at Tartu Art Museum (17 June – 15 October 2023). Kraepelin also used patients&#8217; 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.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="4" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749">4</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="4">Brand-Claussen, B. 2021. Between Respect and Ostracism<em>. The History of a Crazy Collection, Introduction to the Prinzhorn Collection</em>, 6</span></p>



<p>Years later, Kraepelin&#8217;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&#8217; 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&#8217; 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 <em>Artistry of the Mentally Ill</em> (<em>Bildnerei der Geisteskranken</em>), in which he stated that artworks of mentally ill people &#8220;resemble art&#8221; and are thus not merely support material in establishing a fitting diagnosis.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="5" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749">5</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="5">Outsider Art Now, 2017. Outsider Art Museum, 48</span> 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 &#8220;a policy of reasonable racial hygiene&#8221; (<em>verstandige rassenhygiene</em>) 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.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="6" data-mfn-post-scope="000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749">6</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-000000000068b2c30000000000c48989_1749" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="6"><a href="https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.15111414">Rael D. Strous</a> etc, 2016. Reflections on Emil Kraepelin: Icon and Reality. <em>The American Journal of Psychiatry</em>. 173 (3), 300-301 </span>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.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The 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.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Forget me not</h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p>By Thomas Röske</p></div>



<p>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 &#8220;example of the peculiar works of art&#8221; by people diagnosed with <em>dementia praecox</em> (later <em>schizophrenia</em>). For his diagnostic view, accordingly, only the “loss of taste in screaming color combinations and strange shapes” asserted itself in the textile.</p>



<p>The unmarried governess and lady’s companion Grier, born in Ireland as the daughter of a ship&#8217;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 <em>indecently</em>, her mother sent her to the city&#8217;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&#8217;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, <em>Baroque</em> 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.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-300x300.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-788x788.jpg 788w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-1013x1013.jpg 1013w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-1125x1125.jpg 1125w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-1350x1350.jpg 1350w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-1800x1800.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi-1969x1969.jpg 1969w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/03/Miss_G_6053_recto-veebi.jpg 2048w" data-sizes="auto" width="2048" height="2048" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jane Grier, <em>Forget Me Not</em>, 1892. Prinzhor Collection, Heidelberg</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


Piecing together a lost history & Forget Me Not


<p></p>



<p>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 <a href="https://radiovilnius.live/5033-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Radio Vilnius</a>. </p>



<p><iframe loading="lazy" width="100%" height="166" scrolling="no" frameborder="no" allow="autoplay" src="https://w.soundcloud.com/player/?url=https%3A//api.soundcloud.com/tracks/1510214842&amp;color=%23e4999c&amp;auto_play=false&amp;hide_related=false&amp;show_comments=true&amp;show_user=true&amp;show_reposts=false&amp;show_teaser=true"></iframe></p>


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melanie bonajo. When the Body Says Yes. 2022. Video still. Installation in collaboration with Théo Demans, commissioned by Mondriaan Fund. Courtesy of the artist _ AKINCI copy