
<p><strong>Elo Vahtrik</strong> is an artist based in Mustamäe. Vahtrik&#8217;s work explores the plasticity and relations between body and perception.</p>


Elo Vahtrik


<p><strong>Max Hannus</strong> is a curator and writer working in the intersections of sexual/romantic relationships and art making. Their practice is autobiographic, and they’re always searching for (queer) love. They work with different forms of writing: mundane, unpretentious, blunt &#8211; always looking for sincerity.</p>


Max Hannus


<p>I’m leaving rainy Helsinki behind and approaching sunny Tallinn, where I meet Sarah at her studio, and Maria Izabella is joining us on zoom from their studio in Mainz. Maria Izabella and Sarah’s show <em>Hardcore Gentleness</em> is about to open this summer at Vent Space in Tallinn (28–31 August), and we’ve agreed to chat about art and life. I’m thinking of their works and themes of desire, intimacy, safety and sexuality, as my body is soaked to the bone in overflowing infatuation for someone I spent last night with. I’m looking out the window of the Tallink Megastar ferry, and waves of love wash over me. It’s a good day to talk about thirst and connection.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block aligncenter"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-1519x1013.jpg 1519w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-1687x1125.jpg 1687w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-2953x1969.jpg 2953w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-003_beez-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Visual: Elo Vahtrik. Digital collage based on Dialogue by Sarah Nõmm &amp; Sofia Fattahhova. 2022.</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>To start off, I just now realised there’s a meme that funnily relates to your practices: Maria Izabella you’ve used nail clippers as elements in Your Brain is a Bedroom, and Sarah you’ve used body hair and hair as material. In the meme there are two images, before and after. The first says something like My pre-date ritual before, and the latter My pre-date ritual now. The before-image depicts shaving armpit hair, and the now-image depicts cutting nails. I think that’s a nice meme in relation to your practice, as you’re dealing with body image and patriarchal standards of beauty and desirability, and sexuality of course, as cutting nails in this case refers to queer sex.</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: Haha yes! I think hair is a very stigmatised material, when it’s anywhere else than hair, eyelashes or eyebrows. I feel every person who tries to fit the normative has had problems with body hair growing. We all have responsibility for normalising body hair and taking the perceived grossness out of it. Like sometimes when I go to parties, and I have armpit hair, people just pull on them, and I’m like &#8220;what the fuck!” In my practice, I’m using it as a symbol that carries a variety of meanings. I’m trying to actively fight the norms regarding body hair and bodily expression.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>Also related to bodily expression and the body as an active subject, how did you, Maria Izabella start working with imagery of boxing, the hitting hand and boxing gloves?</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: Boxing was initially a hobby of mine, something separate from art. When art became work for me, boxing was something that differed from that, something physical. I had been interested in it as a child already, but I wasn’t allowed to do it, I had to do dance classes. So now, as a grown-up I wanted to start. And then it found its way into my art: the boxing gloves and the wrapping and hands came naturally. I see myself as if in a first-person shooting game, that’s how I see myself in my daily life, hands are the first thing I see of myself. It was interesting that for an artist, hands are such an important tool, and in boxing hands are a boxing tool and a protecting tool. In boxing, hands have to be protected, and at the same time my hands are protecting my head. It’s interesting to think how they have a double-meaning: to protect and be protected. The boxing studios that I’ve been to haven’t really been that inviting though, I haven’t felt I belong to those clubs.</p><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: Yeah, I’ve always been fond of boxing because my dad was a boxer in the late 90s, but I’ve also been discouraged from going; the energy in those spaces is a bit different to what I’d like.</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/2022/06/mariasarah-004-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-1519x1013.jpg 1519w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-1687x1125.jpg 1687w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-2953x1969.jpg 2953w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-004-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Visual: Elo Vahtrik</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>Is this something that you find in other fields in life as well? You’ve mentioned earlier that you find the art field very masculine-driven, or that the energy might not be the most inviting for you? How do you see yourselves in relation to the field: do you see there is space for you?</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: I’ve always felt isolated because of the topics I deal with, like mental health or my queerness, and other people don’t really know how to talk about these topics. Overall, my life experience is quite isolated because I’m neurodivergent, so I feel I have to mask in order to fit into spaces. It’s been funny to me to feel that double-down in art spaces.</p><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: At the Estonian Academy of Arts, some departments are a bit masculine-driven. I remember an instance, when I had a conversation with one of the professors and tried to make him understand why I’m working with body hair, trauma, relationships, sex and BDSM, and he said &#8220;I can see these feminist topics are now in fashion.” I could always almost hear his thoughts, he just didn’t understand, and it was hard to find a common ground. These are not just topics that are &#8220;in fashion” but they are actually important and need to be analysed and talked about.</p><p>In the field in general, it has been a relatively nice experience for me, as it has been slowly changing for the better. Also because of the internet, it’s quite easy to connect to others that are thinking about and working with similar topics, and there, find a sense of sharing.</p><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: The main reason why I didn’t stop talking about the things I deal with, was that it’s so nice when someone thanks me and says they feel the same but haven’t seen any representation before. It’s humbling and warms my heart if I can provide that space, create a little corner where those things are addressed.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>A lot of times, you make something and you never hear what people have felt or experienced. But it’s so valuable!</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: I’ve even made friends with people who’ve reached out via Instagram and commented on my work. I think it’s really typical of the Eastern European queer experience to connect online and that community is really important. And even before Covid the community very much existed online.</p><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: The energetic impulse from others is so important; an artist really needs that. But it’s a basic human need too.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>I’d be curious to know what you’ve been thirsting, yearning after lately?</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: Ah, very primitive things, like love and lust, funky human connections. I live for that connection.</p><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: Maybe it’s basic but mutual understanding. It’s so exciting when someone’s on the same page as you. I haven’t felt so understood in a long time as I feel now by someone. And also, after isolating, basic physical connection, like hugging someone, non-sexual touch, I love it.</p></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-240x300.jpg 240w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-630x788.jpg 630w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-811x1013.jpg 811w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-900x1125.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-1080x1350.jpg 1080w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-1440x1800.jpg 1440w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-1575x1969.jpg 1575w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-002-portrait-scaled.jpg 2048w" data-sizes="auto" width="2048" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Visual: Elo Vahtrik</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>For me, they’re very much the same things. Sometimes an intellectual connection, like having a deep, sharp conversation with someone who knows what you’re talking about and you get new ideas from them and you’re like, wow, my mind is blown, like these brain orgasms. But I’m not always up for that, I guess I’d say that anything that gets me <em>to the next level</em>, somehow accelerates or changes the mode. But always love! When thinking of love or sexuality or wanting to make a connection, how do you see artistic practice fitting into all of that? What is the impact that your art practice has in your life? Because sometimes I think my motivations for making art are very selfish, like I want to do something in my life and that guides my practice. I want big changes but also really small ones. Once I even built a whole exhibition around the desire to spend time with an artist I had a crush on. So artistic practice is like a vehicle in my life to get connected and to process that need.</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: These needs and wants are definitely very intertwined. I’ve started working with shibari as a symbol. I like shibari as a pleasurable act, but through art I can dig deeper and make time for it, and also interpret it in an artistic way. And when I started thinking of non-monogamy and doing research on that, I met a girl who was polyamorous and I fell for her, and it all came together. In shibari, the safety aspect is so important, the feeling that someone is holding you. And since hormones are involved – rush of endorphins – it’s very addictive.</p><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: For me too, even if I wouldn’t want something to become a project, I still somehow vent through creating. At first, my art practice was more about me venting, but at one point I found myself accidentally retraumatising myself, so I had to step back and think through how I want to represent myself through art. It’s only quite recently that I’ve twisted the narrative in a way that it’s not so much about me anymore, and that feels healthier. I started detaching myself and made an alter ego, Mesimagus, that’s like a third person presenting something that’s not personal. It made me more interested in making art.</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/2022/06/mariasarah-005-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-675x1013.jpg 675w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-1200x1800.jpg 1200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-1313x1969.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-005-scaled.jpg 1707w" data-sizes="auto" width="1707" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Visual: Elo Vahtrik</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>Yeah, when dealing with personal stuff in art, it’s very fragile and very delicate terrain. You get lost or broken easily if you leave yourself too exposed.</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: Every time I put something out there, I feel like I’m standing naked in the gallery, and everyone else is wearing clothes. But for me it gets gradually easier to be naked. Maybe there’s some masochism in there, it’s very therapeutic.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>For me, it’s a very mixed feelings situation, like feeling deeply ashamed and excited at the same time. Being like &#8220;look, here are my insides<em>”</em>, but feeling terrified and super embarrassed. In relation to being fragile and terrified, do you think that it is possible to build structures for oneself that support in this aloneness? Was the isolation project, <em>Loveless 2</em>, for example, a way of creating a safer space for you?</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: Isolation came from a personal need, as I found out I am neurodivergent. I felt alone, and I wanted to think about what a safer space is for me, being a queer person as well. The new me didn’t fit with the ideas many people in my life had about me and I had to cut people out. Through this project I found a way to be vulnerable again, and to be surrounded by people.</p><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: The power of being vulnerable!</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>I’m thinking of the title of your upcoming exhibition, <em>Hardcore Gentleness</em>. Do you think the world is ready for hardcore gentleness?</p></div><div class="answer"><p><strong>Sarah Nõmm</strong>: My pink cultural bubble is quite safe, but when I’m outside of that bubble, it’s a very scary world. The world is not accepting of vulnerability, but we’re taking baby steps.</p><p><strong>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar</strong>: The term <em>world</em> is funny, but when you take the courage to be gentle in a hardcore way, the right people will find you, and you will form your own little world.</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/2022/06/mariasarah-006-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-1519x1013.jpg 1519w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-1687x1125.jpg 1687w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-2953x1969.jpg 2953w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/06/mariasarah-006-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Visual: Elo Vahtrik</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-details-block details"><p>Maria Izabella Lehtsaar is a Tallinn-based artist, working primarily with themes of queer experience and mental health, often exploring the fine line between reality and fantasy. Their works and motifs are simultaneously modest, loud and captivating. They blend pop culture aesthetics and sensitive black-and-white graphics, combining them in textiles, drawing and text.&nbsp;</p><p>Sarah Nõmm<strong> </strong>is a Tallinn-based artist, working mainly in the media of sculpture, installation, video and performance. Her practice focuses on the woman&#8217;s body and the spaces around it. Her works are often based on personal experience and look at the body in the context of folk traditions, myths, taboos and everyday rituals, while also analysing the underpinning gender inequality. She often uses traditional handicraft techniques in her practice, such as spinning yarn, felting and weaving on looms.</p></div>


maria+sarah 004

Thirst

Art as a way of creating safer spaces, possibilities for intimacy and connection. A conversation with Sarah Nõmm and Maria Izabella Lehtsaar

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

A Shade Colder

digikaas

Flesh in Tension


<p>The 2023 summer issue of A Shade Colder, <em>Flesh in Tension</em> takes a closer look at fleshy matters. Our flesh and body shape our day-to-day existence as much as our intellect and emotions, it cannot be separated from how we perceive and are perceived in the world. It allows us to be human and, in fact, makes us human – a significant part of our particularities and specific experiences exist within our flesh. Our flesh and body often determine how we are perceived and perceive ourselves and does so before anything else. These perceptions are influenced by a variety of social, historical, economic and cultural forces, a network of systems chafing against human flesh – wearing, grinding, elevating, exciting, cultivating us into what we are constantly becoming, while we try to persist and sustain ourselves. To delve deeper into the tensions between these systems and the flesh, the issue features texts on work, gender, performance, stereotypes, architecture and disability.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-292x300.jpg 292w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-997x1024.jpg 997w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-767x788.jpg 767w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-986x1013.jpg 986w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-1095x1125.jpg 1095w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-1314x1350.jpg 1314w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-1752x1800.jpg 1752w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-1916x1969.jpg 1916w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/asc5-veebi-copy-1-scaled.jpg 2492w" data-sizes="auto" width="2492" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Illustration: Martina Gofman &amp; Johanna Ruukholm, <em>Flesh in Tension</em>, 2023</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p><strong>Airi Triisberg</strong> writes about the importance of sustaining yourself materially in a precarious world, more precisely about wages for art work, accompanied by visuals by <strong>Zody Burke</strong>. In his interview with <strong>Heneliis Notton</strong> Samira Elagoz discusses performing gender and the gendered gaze in his newest film <em>Seeking Bromance</em>. Exploring the appeal of blonde hair both in Estonian art and among women, <strong>Marge Monko</strong> takes a closer look at the role of genetics, national imagery and pop culture.</p>



<p><strong>Ingrid Ruudi</strong> writes about bodies existing within regimes that gladly render them invisible, disregard their needs and particularities, uncovering the spatial politics of disability in late Soviet Estonia. Looking further into the relationship between architecture and bodies, <strong>Kaarin Kivirähk</strong> interviews Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson and Mari Möldre about their project <em>Home Stage</em>, presented at this year’s Architecture Biennale in Venice, focusing on the contradiction of homes as a place to create a life in and a piece of real estate with exchange value. And in their poem <strong>nick von kleist</strong> invites the reader to spiral between nature and screens, as much as bodied or disembodied tensions in the reader allow.</p>



<p>Of course, tension can produce alertness, anxiety or make a person freeze in their flow to examine the systems that rub away at their fleshy bits. But there also can be pleasure and playfulness in tension – so perhaps it is better to really gaze deeply into this tension from time to time rather than let it slowly eat away at our tender flesh.</p>


Editorial. Flesh in Tension


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-300x279.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-1024x951.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-848x788.jpg 848w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-1091x1013.jpg 1091w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-1211x1125.jpg 1211w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-1454x1350.jpg 1454w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-1938x1800.jpg 1938w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-2120x1969.jpg 2120w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2378" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Zody Burke, <em>Artist in Studio</em>, 2023</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>According to a recent wage survey, the average monthly income of art practitioners in Estonia is 600 euros<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-1">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-1" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">Koppel, K., Arrak, K., Konov, V., Parts, R. 2023. <em>Loometöö tasustamine Eestis ja loomepalkade mõju hindamine</em>. Civitta Eesti AS, 2023.</span>. This number is lower than the national minimum wage and reflects an international trend – visual art is among the lowest earning branches in the cultural sector.&nbsp; One strategy to improve working conditions is establishing criteria for fair pay. Such fair pay guidelines are usually developed by artist unions and advocacy organisations; however, in Estonia the process was initiated at the grassroots level. Together with Maarin Ektermann, we consulted with nearly 70 colleagues to develop a fair pay proposal that would consider the particularities of the Estonian tax system<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-2">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-2" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">Ektermann, M., Triisberg, A. 2022. <em>Õiglaste tasumäärade ettepanek kunstivaldkonnale</em>. Kodutud tekstid. Available at: <a href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/17DpQeLDIrUcPae2GHkS6gblqLevKzU7Q/view">KT_töövihik_elektrooniline_05.01.22.pdf</a></span>.</p>



<p>The proposal focuses on exhibition making, which is a core activity in the art sector. Participating in exhibitions should generate substantial income for art workers; however, this is currently not the case. Even the most well-funded exhibition spaces pay artist fees that are barely in sync with the national minimum wage. The remuneration of artists is usually lower than the pay of installation technicians, graphic designers, project managers, curators or exhibition designers. In many cases, artists are funding the exhibitions from their own pocket, either through unpaid labour or finances channelled into production costs. There is no consensus that making art is work that should be recognised and remunerated as such.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Why are wages important?</strong></h2>



<p>The fair pay proposal suggests a three-tiered model, taking into account the budget limits of different exhibition spaces. The highest fee rate is linked to the minimum wage of cultural workers (currently 1,600 euros per month), which is a wage tariff applied to the permanent employees of some state funded institutions. The lowest fee rate is linked to the national minimum wage (725 euros per month or 4.30 per hour), a standard which also has limited reach. The minimum wage is legally binding for all conventional employment contracts; however, in the art sector incomes are usually lower because the law does not apply to temporary work contracts. There is no consensus in the art field about complying with the minimal standards voluntarily.</p>



<p>For freelance art workers, earning the minimum monthly wage is crucial because access to health insurance, unemployment protection and future retirement pension depends on it. The minimum wage has been rising every year, whereas incomes in the art sector remain stagnant. From the perspective of art workers, chasing the minimum wage is a sport that demands a truly athletic performance. Another problem is that not all income is paid in the form of wages – grants, licence fees and art sales are not subject to labour taxes and therefore do not grant access to the social security system. A recent study showed that 49% of freelance cultural workers in Estonia do not have stable access to health insurance<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="3" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-3">3</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-3" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="3">Koppel, K., Masso, M., Arrak, K., Michelson, A. 2021. <em>Vabakutselised loovisikud, nende majandusliku toimetuleku mudelid ja sotsiaalsete garantiide kättesaadavus</em>. Mõttekoda Praxis.</span>. To improve the situation, it is critical that artistic labour is remunerated fairly and through wages. Wages and social guarantees are two sides of the same coin.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Why is tracking time necessary?</strong></h2>



<p>Before developing our proposal, we researched fair pay standards in other countries and presented three examples for public discussion: the MU Agreement in Sweden, the recommendations developed by Carfac in Canada, and W.A.G.E. in New York<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="4" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-4">4</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-4" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="4">Triisberg, A., Mürk, M. Näitusetasu. Kolm näidet mujalt. Sirp (6 December 2019)</span>. The fee tariffs in these examples are linked to various parameters including the budget of the exhibition space, the number of visitors, the duration of the exhibition, or the number of participating artists. When analysing these models, we identified some essential shortcomings. For example, there is often a negative correlation between group exhibitions and artist fees – the larger the exhibition, the smaller the fee. Such a principle serves the interest of the institutions rather than the artists because the workload of one artist does not depend on whether the exhibition includes 10 or 20 artists. Models based on the number of visitors and the duration of the exhibition are framing the artwork as a commodity. In our proposal, we chose a different approach and focused on measuring working time.</p>



<p>Negotiating on the basis of workload is not a common practice in the art sector. The fees are usually dictated by institutions who approach freelance art workers once their budget is already fixed. These budgets do not realistically reflect the time needed to carry out the work.</p>



<p>In group conversations with art practitioners, we tried to estimate the average time needed to produce art works and exhibitions. For example, artists estimated that the preparation of a solo exhibition requires 6–9 months of full-time work, although the preparation period itself is usually longer because the intensity of work varies over time. The workload also depends on external factors such as the size of the exhibition space and the availability of institutional support staff. Based on the group conversations, we developed negotiation guidelines with negotiation guidelines that can be used to discuss the division of labour between the artist and the institution. This worksheet also highlights activities that are often overseen when agreements about workload are made, such as attending meetings and writing emails, participating in public programmes or giving interviews to the press. However, creative work cannot always be planned and measured precisely. Some concepts take time to mature, while others are born in the moment; some ideas are easy to realise, others require long experimentation with materials, techniques or skills. The negotiations about workload and fair pay should not only focus on administrative tasks that can be easily measured, but it is important to consider that the creative process also takes time.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-300x279.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-1024x951.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-848x788.jpg 848w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-1091x1013.jpg 1091w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-1211x1125.jpg 1211w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-1454x1350.jpg 1454w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-1938x1800.jpg 1938w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-2120x1969.jpg 2120w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2378" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Zody Burke, <em>Tallinn</em>, 2023</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/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-300x279.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-1024x951.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-848x788.jpg 848w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-1091x1013.jpg 1091w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-1211x1125.jpg 1211w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-1454x1350.jpg 1454w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-1938x1800.jpg 1938w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-2120x1969.jpg 2120w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2378" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Zody Burke, <em><em>Interpassivity</em></em>, 2023</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Why is collective organising essential?</strong></h2>



<p>Not much has changed during the one and a half years since the fair pay proposal was published. Two institutions have partially modelled their fee tariffs according to the proposal. Tallinn Art Hall linked their artist fees with the minimum wage for cultural workers; however, the workload calculations are unrealistic – for the preparation of a large solo exhibition artists receive the payment of only three months – and thus the artist fees are actually closer to the national minimum wage which is roughly two times lower. The magazine <em>A Shade Colder</em> follows the proposed fee schedule for writers; however, the rates have not been adjusted to factor in the high inflation and the rise in the minimum wage tariffs in 2023. Some institutions have made adjustments that do not require financial means, such as improving legal awareness and adjusting communication protocols. It is commonly agreed that establishing new labour standards requires additional funding for art and culture. This aim can be achieved only through collective pressure.</p>



<p>In the past decade, the visual art sector in Estonia has gone through two different cycles of debate addressing un(der)paid labour. The first cycle took place in 2009–2011 as a collective organising process and coincided with an international wave of self-organised movements of art workers mobilised in the aftermath of the global financial crisis. The ongoing cycle (from 2019 onwards) has been led by individual experts, advocacy organisations and the ministry of culture. This shift in the forms of organising mirrors certain general patterns characteristic to labour struggles in Estonia. In the trade union movement, the preference is for a top-down service model in which the trade union offers counselling, support and services for members rather than empowering their active participation<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="5" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-5">5</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-5" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="5">Kall, K. Ametiühingute nõrkusest ja strateegilistest valikutest. <em>Vikerkaar</em> 2023/1-2.</span>.</p>



<p>According to a recent survey, only 4% of art workers are organised in trade unions, while 68% are members of creative associations which function as the most important advocacy organisations in the cultural sector<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="6" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-6">6</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2169-6" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="6">Koppel, K., Arrak, K., Konov, V., Parts, R. 2023. <em>Loometöö tasustamine Eestis ja loomepalkade mõju hindamine</em>. Civitta Eesti AS, 2023.</span>. In those cultural branches where workers are organised in trade unions – for example, theatre – working conditions are better. That is why it is essential that the issue of fair wages not be confined to elite spaces and limited to a negotiation between policy-making experts and representatives of advocacy organisations. The political pressure which is needed to improve working conditions in the art sector will be stronger when exercised collectively by a multitude of art workers – artists, curators, writers, designers, educators, archivists, builders, exhibition guards, cleaners, etc.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-300x180.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1024x614.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1313x788.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1689x1013.jpg 1689w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-1875x1125.jpg 1875w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-2250x1350.jpg 2250w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3000x1800.jpg 3000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-3282x1969.jpg 3282w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Untitled_Artwork-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1536" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Zody Burke, <em>Meetin</em>g, 2023</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


Wages for art work


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-300x199.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-1024x679.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-1188x788.jpg 1188w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-1528x1013.jpg 1528w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-1696x1125.jpg 1696w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-2036x1350.jpg 2036w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-2714x1800.jpg 2714w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-2969x1969.jpg 2969w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/16-89630030-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1698" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Samira Elagoz &amp; Z Walsh, <em>You can’t get what you want but you can get me</em>, 2023</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Filmmaker and performance artist Samira Elagoz likes to join his spectators in front of the camera, capturing relationships in an intimacy deprived society. That often leaves the spectator to question the fictionality, performativity, and realness of the work but as Samira has written: “Romance is business and business is romance”<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2193"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2193-1">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000725bce81000000005608abdd_2193-1" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">Elagoz, S. 2017. What I saw and how I lied. <em>Post-Dance</em>. Spångberg, M., Danjel Andersson, D., Edvartsen, M. (eds). Stockholm : MDT, 206</span>. His work <em>Cock, Cock… Who’s There?</em> – research on the spectrum of male–female relations, rape, online dating, and an attempt to regain one&#8217;s power – was followed by <em>Seek Bromance</em>, a pandemic-era journey of two lovers and a camera. His latest work with artist Z Walsh, the installation – <em>You Can’t Get What You Want But You Can Get Me</em> – opened in April as part of the <em>Nuoret 2023</em> exhibition in Helsinki.</p>



<p>Rumoured to be queer, provocative and emotionally intense, <em>Seek Bromance</em> was a must-see for me. The social media influenced dramaturgy and editing kept me on the edge of my seat for 240 minutes and I was fully immersed in Samira&#8217;s transition from high femme to transmasculine. <em>Seek Bromance</em> had initiated a personal process of constructing and deconstructing my perspectives on performing and practicing gender, first having to critically examine and then reinvent how I&#8217;ve perceived the “conventional” narrative of being trans.&nbsp;This interview is a sequel to questions I was left with after being introduced to Samira&#8217;s practice and a prequel to him coming to perform <em>Seek Bromance</em> at the festival SAAL Biennaal in Tallinn in August.&nbsp;</p>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p><strong>This is something I&#8217;ve been meaning to ask for a while – how do you prefer to be called?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>My name is and always was Samira Elagoz. But people often call me Sam. During my three years of being out as trans, many have asked if I will change my name, but the truth is I don&#8217;t care so much for names. I believe they belong to gravestones. My relationship with “Samira” is complicated though. I hated it my whole youth as I was constantly bullied for being half Egyptian. While I could “pass as Finnish”, my name would always give me away. But later in life I became very proud of it. So, for me, “Samira” is not a marker of being a woman but of my background.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p><strong>How do you carry the pressure and responsibility of having become the voice for many transmasculine people? Or the voice of sexual violence victims?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>I believe one cannot, and should not, represent a “community”. To be expected to be a spokesperson for an entire demographic is unrealistic and unfair. If you are an artist from a minority or oppressed group, you are always being reviewed for what you represent, and whether your performance of representation is adequate. Any consideration of your merit as director, dramaturge, or editor, is entirely secondary, if that. The judgement is always personal, aimed at your appearance or behaviour, rather than how you make your work. White cis men, conversely, have been given this sense of neutrality, where they have the freedom to represent others, and tell stories they’ve merely observed. In addition, marginalised artists are held to a higher level of purity, and have the most to lose by not living up to imagined standards.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p><strong>Could you define the transmasculine gaze in relation to the male/female gaze?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>A defining moment in my career was in 2015, when I went to a retrospective exhibition of a famous male photographer. I remember thinking what a shame that this man met all these women throughout his life, and managed to portray them all in the same way. The thing about the male gaze is that at its core, it is boring – men projecting lascivious fantasies onto women. I decided then that when I have my retrospective one day, people will be able to see the life I experienced with my subjects/collaborators.</p><p>I’ve been filming strangers for ten years now, and I never had the intent of ascribing them to a specific role. My subjects could show themselves to me as they wanted to be seen. I gave them the freedom to use the camera, to turn it around on me. But to be frank, I’m not so invested in the gender of gaze anymore. A curious gaze should not be tied to the maker&#8217;s gender, but the way they choose to make work. In film, you could say it is in character development. How complex, unpredictable, or realistic you make your characters. Storytelling is universal, and the male perspective can no longer be considered the default one.</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/2023/07/seek-7-2.png" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/seek-7-2-150x150.png 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/seek-7-2-300x158.png 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/seek-7-2-1024x540.png 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/seek-7-2-1400x738.png 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/seek-7-2-1800x949.png 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/seek-7-2.png 2878w" data-sizes="auto" width="2878" height="1518" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Samira Elagoz,<em> Seek Bromance</em>, 2021</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><strong>What is the power you hold as the initiator of a documentary artwork? Is it even power? Responsibility? A request to co-parent an unborn artwork?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>I always knew I didn&#8217;t want to make traditional documentaries. I think it’s rather cowardly to be just behind the camera, to not put yourself on the line. My works are not a collection of portraits, but interactions between me and my subjects or collaborators. When I step into my camera’s frame, and offer the people I film a chance to use the camera, I try to create a dynamic in which the camera’s gaze is in constant dialogue. As for my collaborations, it’s important to me that the filming process is influenced by both of us. I&#8217;ve offered them the chance to be part of the editing, and it’s crucial that we get paid the same amount. That being said, anytime you represent someone else there is an inevitable power dynamic. I understand the vulnerability of being shown through someone else’s POV, and the courage it takes to be perceived. And even though I&#8217;ve thought a lot about these dynamics and created methods to offset and equalise them, they will be present.&nbsp;</p><p>My newest collaboration <em>You Can’t Get What You Want But You Can Get Me</em> with my partner Z Walsh was my first experience working with someone who was as keen to film me as I was him. I finally found someone with whom there wasn’t much of a power dynamic because we both shared the same need and curiosity to document our relationship since the moment we met.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p><strong>How does the presence of a camera – the potential of a foreign gaze, an unknown number of strangers in the space with you – influence intimate situations?&nbsp;</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>The process of building a relationship, romantic or not, in front of a camera is a vulnerable and unpredictable experience for both parties. Meeting in the presence of a camera heightens a lot of the interactions. Romance is more romantic, excitement more exciting. Similarly, awkwardness can easily become tension.</p><p>Therapist Esther Perel, who publicly podcasts some of her sessions, says that couples therapy is the best theatre in town. In any situation where real intimacy is portrayed publicly, be it an artwork or reality TV, you open yourself up to be judged for the most private parts of your life. I personally believe there is something noble about placing your life, issues, insecurities and epiphanies on display, to trust your experience is human, and shared, and of value. We should admire people who dare to expose themselves like that.</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/2023/07/IMG_4791.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791-300x158.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791-1024x538.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791-1400x735.jpg 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791-1800x945.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791-2000x1050.jpg 2000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_4791.jpg 2076w" data-sizes="auto" width="2076" height="1090" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Samira Elagoz,<em> Seek Bromance</em>, 2021</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><strong>Assuming there is the freedom to not have to entirely perform yourself – how much effort do you put into staying yourself in a situation where the camera is facing you?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>I recently read a quote from Ingmar Bergman: “I could always live in my art but never in my life.” Autism runs in my family, and while I’ve never been formally diagnosed and have no intention of self-diagnosing, social interactions have always felt like a struggle to me. I’ve often felt like an alien who cannot socialise, and this has led me to <em>perform</em> socially in my real life, more than in my art. I&#8217;ve needed to mask and practise social choreography. Being in front of and behind the camera are some of the only places where I feel like I can be genuine, where I feel truly alive. And while people may not regard that as being my authentic self, to me, it is.</p><p>Working between documentary and performance I often face questions about authenticity. The main question remains: how performative is this documentary? An unanswerable question, because even if I would try to act like myself, the audience could never be sure to what extent that “self” is being <em>performed</em>, nor what my motives are.&nbsp;</p></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/facetune-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Samira Elagoz &amp; Z Walsh, <em>You can’t get what you want but you can get me</em>, 2023</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/2023/07/IMG_5524-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/IMG_5524-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Samira Elagoz &amp; Z Walsh, <em>You can’t get what you want but you can get me</em>, 2023</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><strong>I do feel the art world is often afraid of being incorrect or too triggering. Subconsciously, I tend to expect artists dealing with <em>contemporary</em> topics to constantly question right and wrong, lead the way, and never suggest that being triggered and cared for may not be opposites. Why is it important for the viewer to be triggered?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>I think the position of spectatorship is by default triggering. To be left only to witness, without being able to act in the moment. The passiveness of spectatorship can be quite paralysing regardless of the topic of the work. I recently read an interview with Nick Cave who said it’s the most problematic individuals that produce the best art. Although I cannot fully subscribe to that idea, I do think the greatest art can’t be made by moralists. I am convinced that the most powerful works arise from a place of nuanced understanding, and acceptance of complexity. Artists shouldn’t strive to be role models.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p><strong>How do you direct the way the artwork triggers, and then “hold space” for the triggered?</strong></p></div><div class="answer"><p>I do put a lot of thought into how I construct dramaturgy, build tension and relieve it. I think the care happens there. However, I try to make my works without moralising, or giving readymade conclusions. I want the mic to turn towards the audience in the end. They should be left with a desire to articulate for themselves.</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/2023/07/Seek-Bromance.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-300x158.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-1024x540.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-1400x738.jpg 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-1800x949.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-2000x1055.jpg 2000w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance-2400x1265.jpg 2400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Seek-Bromance.jpg 2492w" data-sizes="auto" width="2492" height="1314" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Samira Elagoz,<em> Seek Bromance</em>, 2021</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


The position of spectatorship is by default triggering: An interview with Samira Elagoz

Blonde: Lemmi, Jean, Shirley and others

The spatial politics of disability in late Soviet Estonia

From home sweet home to an object of speculation: Interview with architects Aet Ader, Arvi Anderson and Mari Möldre


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-133x300.jpg 133w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-455x1024.jpg 455w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-350x788.jpg 350w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-450x1013.jpg 450w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-500x1125.jpg 500w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-600x1350.jpg 600w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-800x1800.jpg 800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-875x1969.jpg 875w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-pikk0-scaled.jpg 1138w" data-sizes="auto" width="1138" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>//flash— <br>grass uproots <br>in quick steps; <br>running in <br>new time </p>



<p>//zoom out— <br>clear the sky <br>&amp; screen: <br>all levels, <br>all at once </p>



<p>//zoom out, out, out–– <br>ready to play? </p>



<p>\\press start// </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>awoken in a forest, <br>the sun bathes you <br>––an image of wood <br>in a green dress–– <br>a shadow rests on time, <br>a dirty mirror, <br>raging bears; <br>a halo of orange <br>bourbon &amp; blurred faces <br>overlay in stills–– <br>floating </p>



<p>//zoom out–– <br>you must spell out: <br><em>warbles </em><br>with your tongue; <br>try again </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>sleep/grass: <br>a predusk wash. <br>the clouds here <br>are stone. </p>



<p>//zoom in— <br>get out— <br>the body is, <br><s>&lt;yourself&gt;</s> <br>an anti-harmony–– <br>body running; <br>you spit––glitch–– <br>wet: the dew rich grass; <br>step; lick–– <br>circumambulation <br>ringing </p>



<p>//flash–– <br>—you fall in. </p>



<p>//flash–– <br>eyes manifest, <br>hands––your mouth; <br><s>mouth— </s><br>your legs, <br>loud </p>



<p>//zoom out–– <br>level ten <br>level four <br>level up </p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-126x300.jpg 126w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-431x1024.jpg 431w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-332x788.jpg 332w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-427x1013.jpg 427w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-474x1125.jpg 474w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-568x1350.jpg 568w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-758x1800.jpg 758w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-829x1969.jpg 829w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-scaled.jpg 1078w" data-sizes="auto" width="1078" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>//flash— <br>but you need no helmet, <br><s>you are different </s></p>



<p>\\flash— <br>compost, <br>skin; <br>the floor is concrete. <br>melodic runs. </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>find an exit–– <br>and the shaken <br>ppl; those ppl, <br>tired, tired of <br>the back to darkness–– </p>



<p>//flash— <br>out the portal, <br>off the platform, <br>a deep plunge, <br>a twist into words <br>down a hall, <br>like strawberries. </p>



<p>//zoom out— <br>you look up &amp; <br>you hear the <br>blurred faces &amp; <br>toenails stuttering on <br>the in-between breeze </p>



<p>//zoom out— <br>a stone bell end of <br>all your emotions, &amp;, <br>i am tired; <br>health, coin &amp; quest: <br>a sense of place; <br>refresh. </p>



<p>//flash— <br>you made your way, but <br>couldn&#8217;t walk. <br>dust covered the sun, <br>its pixels ripping <br>behind a leaf of cloud <br>swirling down spirals <br>in you/ <br>on you </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>&amp; pressed against <br>midnight <br>––bearing your <br>skin to the sky–– <br>if you stay in a place like this, <br>you might not be able to connect </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>how do you, <br>you rustle &amp; <br>stumble again </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>a body <br>still means borders </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>moist paint <br>spilling <br>dissonance </p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-126x300.jpg 126w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-431x1024.jpg 431w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-332x788.jpg 332w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-427x1013.jpg 427w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-474x1125.jpg 474w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-568x1350.jpg 568w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-758x1800.jpg 758w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-829x1969.jpg 829w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-scaled.jpg 1078w" data-sizes="auto" width="1078" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>//zoom out— <br>crazy adventure: <br>chair, drink <br>&amp; dust. </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>the paper broke–– <br>but your shame was <br>like voice over <br>on branches breaching <br>from lips to steps </p>



<p>//flash <br>awake after pause, <br>action: <br>inspect: <br>chattering from <br>downstairs; <br>somehow spitting <br>in circles, around <br>a puddle that is <br>your eyes </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>your legs bend, <br>you stumble. <br>it&#8217;s not much further </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>&amp; fusing skin <br>falters. now, your <br>drawn smacks <br>seem bare— <br>&amp; you slur: <br>a cyber sense of <br>community </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>&amp; you’re dragging <br>a halo of orange <br>&amp; its shadow rests <br>in pixels; <br>running in circles, <br>neons leading you; <br><s>you couldn’t connect </s></p>



<p>//zoom out–– <br>it was definitely past <br>glitching, when <br>the wet paper, <br>sitting seafoam <br>&amp; your white shoes <br>frozen, disarrayed <br>&amp; mid-spill <br>as notes struck <br>a strong whiff <s>of <br>glorious, cheap, available</s> </p>



<p>//zoom out— <br>memory frozen. <br>after the sun’s death, <br>my tendons were cigarettes <br>&amp; the tobacco spilled out, <br>resteeping <br>on the dark bar. </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>a mad body, <br>a grin, <br>a leaf appears; <br>metamorphosis is in. </p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-126x300.jpg 126w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-431x1024.jpg 431w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-332x788.jpg 332w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-427x1013.jpg 427w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-474x1125.jpg 474w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-568x1350.jpg 568w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-758x1800.jpg 758w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-829x1969.jpg 829w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/chain-scaled.jpg 1078w" data-sizes="auto" width="1078" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>“sassy spiral” (2023)</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>find out <br>how you came to this <br>green–– <br>it fills the foreground <br>over the long stone; <br>the shield is <br>waiting. <br>are you <br>at once sound &amp; <br>a peninsula, <br>with words sprouting: <br>‘save them’ </p>



<p>//zoom-in–– <br>you have <br>a multi-headed, <br>blurred, slumped body, <br>fissure <br>between times </p>



<p>//flash— <br>reward? <br><s>yes please </s></p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>like pine, <br>the linoleum <br>tingling awake–– <br>fruit fwd phlegm, <br>frozen &amp; vibrating </p>



<p>//zoom-in–– <br>more health <br>more hearts <br>more time </p>



<p>//zoom-in–– <br>red tipped lavender <br>&amp; a swarm of green— <br>last night <br>ripples in. </p>



<p>//flash— <br>there was all this <br>unshifting <br>wind again <br>in loops–– </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>examine your surroundings, <br>stones soak, <br>so many spirals <br>swimming in wails. </p>



<p>//zoom out–– <br>mouth—/ <br>&amp; green–– <br>ripples out. </p>



<p>//zoom in–– <br>you’re dragging <br>the glitch rich grass. </p>



<p>\\back to start.&nbsp;</p>


start—screen—spiral


<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Vilnius Biennial brings performances to the city</h3><div class="location01"><p>23 July – 6 August 2023, Vilnius, Lithuania</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/vilniusbiennial/">@vilniusbiennial</a></p></div><div class="description01"><p>The first edition of the Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art will invite the residents of and visitors to Vilnius to witness performances by both established and emerging artists from Lithuania and abroad. The main focus of this Biennial is the city as a human-made and human-dominated environment that we share with other life forms, where different histories, myths, activities, interests, desires and visions collide, coexist and overlap.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Kaunas Biennale and Survival Kit unite in friendship</h3><div class="location02"><p>Kaunas Biennale, 25 August – 29 October <a href="https://www.instagram.com/kaunasbiennial/?hl=en">@kaunasbiennial</a></p><p>Survival Kit, 7 September – 8 October <a href="https://www.instagram.com/survivalkit.lv/?hl=en">@survivalkit</a></p></div><div class="description02"><p>The 14th Kaunas Biennale (Kaunas, Lithuania) and Contemporary Art Festival Survival Kit 14 (Riga, Latvia) announce Alicia Knock and Inga Lāce as the co-curators of Long-distance Friendships – a programme of events driven by shared research, friendship, and exchange of ideas activating decolonial perspectives and aesthetics across sites in each country. As the seemingly forgotten, yet so present, the traumatic past of the region is looming back in the daily lives of Eastern European societies with the ongoing invasion of Ukraine, the curators&nbsp; ask: in a time of geopolitical fragmentation, can international alliances be forged and nurtured based on friendship and solidarity rather than power and market dynamics?</p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/VB23-opening-event-curated-programme_-Emilija-Skarnulyte-performance.-Photo-by-Andrej-Vasilenko.-Photo-by-Marius-Zicius-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Vilnius Biennial of Performance Art. Opening event (curated programme) Emilija Škarnulytė performance. Photo by Marius Zicius</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/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-212x300.jpg 212w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-722x1024.jpg 722w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-556x788.jpg 556w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-714x1013.jpg 714w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-793x1125.jpg 793w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-952x1350.jpg 952w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-1269x1800.jpg 1269w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-1388x1969.jpg 1388w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Installation-view-of-the-work-by-Tabita-Rezaire-at-the-Contemporary-Art-Festival-Survival-Kit-13-The-Little-Bird-must-be-Caught-curated-by-iLiana-Fokianaki-in-Riga-September-2022.-Photo-copy-scaled.jpg 1805w" data-sizes="auto" width="1805" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Installation view of the work by Tabita Rezaire at the Contemporary Art Festival Survival Kit 13 “<em>The Little Bird must be Caught</em>” curated by iLiana Fokianaki, in Riga, September 2022. Photo by Ēriks Božis, Latvian Centre for Contemporary Art</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">Tallinn performance art festival SAAL Biennaal celebrates its 20th edition</h3><div class="location01"><p>21 – 31 August, Tallinn, Estonia</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/kanutigildisaal_/">@kanutigildisaal_</a></p></div><div class="description01"><p>SAAL Biennaal is a performance art biennale in Tallinn at Kanuti Gildi SAAL theatre. This edition has been collectively curated by the people of SAAL and the opening performance will be <em>DOOM</em> – a collaboration between Teresa Vittucci and Colin Self. Many of the works in the programme address the “invisible other” – something or someone who has been left out, and the borders between “here” and “there”, “me” and “them”.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Cesis art festival opens in mid-July</h3><div class="location02"><p>15 July – 20 August, Cesis, Latvia</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/makslasfestivalscesis/">@makslasfestivalscesis</a></p></div><div class="description02"><p>Cesis Art Festival opens with exhibitions and concerts on the 15 July in the North-Latvian town of Cesis. The main exhibition is a group show <em>Artifacts of the Present</em>, curated by Žanete Skarule, where artists Ola Vasiljeva, Kristaps Ancans, Augustas Serapinas and Lina Lapelyte create a dialogue with space, its history, and imagined future. The festival programme also includes solo shows by Martins Vizbulis and Raimonds Staprāns.&nbsp;</p></div></div></div>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/Oss-by-Marlene-Monteiro-Freitas.-Photo_-Laurent-Philipe-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1><em>Ôss</em> by Marlene Monteiro Freitas. Photo by Laurent Philipe</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/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/MABOCA-festival-in-Madona.-Photo_-MABOCA-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>MABOCA festival in Madona. Photo by MABOCA</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">MABOCA draws the viewers into a game of irony</h3><div class="location01"><p>20 May – 15 July, Madona, Latvia</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/mabocafestival/?hl=en">@mabocafestival</a></p></div><div class="description01"><p>For the third year running, MABOCA, or Madona Bunch of Cool Art is an art festival in the town of Maboca in Latvia. The festival brings together local and international artists and draws viewers into a game of irony, starting with the name of the biennale, which is a reference to the Riga International Biennial RIBOCA. The festival will take place in Madona&#8217;s railway station, bus station, cinema &#8220;Vidzeme,&#8221; and several outdoor locations.&nbsp;</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Urban Festival UIT in Tartu focuses on wastelands</h3><div class="location02"><p>16 – 19 August, Tartu, Estonia</p><p><a href="https://www.instagram.com/uitfestival/">@uitfestival</a></p></div><div class="description02"><p>Urban Festival UIT (derived from the Estonian word “uitama” – to wander) is a site-specific art festival which aims to discover the urban space of its host town Tartu from new and exciting angles. The festival cooperates with local and foreign artists working in interdisciplinary mediums. The ephemeral charm of UIT is embodied in the way the festival gives new life to long forgotten and abandoned places in Tartu – deserted buildings and overgrown gardens which have not stood the test of time. The temporary revival of those sites allows Tartu to expand in abstract dimensions and encourages the audience to dream. The central theme of this year, <em>Urban Pause,</em> focuses on the wastelands and voids of Tartu.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Summer Exhibition of Estonian Young Contemporary Art Union</h3><div class="location01"><p>3 – 24 August, Tallinn, Estonia</p><p>@enkkl_nadalapreemia</p></div><div class="description01"><p>The first annual show of the Estonian Young Contemporary Art Union will happen at Tallinn Art Hall gallery in August. The Union has so far been giving weekly awards for young artists on Instagram. It is a non-institutional community of young artists aiming to acknowledge, introduce and unite young artists just starting their careers. There will be events on the opening and final day of the show, tours, a public programme and a visitor’s award for the best artist. The title and concept of the show is a reference to the traditional <em>Spring Exhibition</em> at Tallinn Art Hall, organized yearly by the Estonian Artists Association.</p></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></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/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy-300x169.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy-1024x576.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy-1400x788.jpg 1400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy-1800x1013.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/ENKKL-kunstnikekollaaz-copy.jpg 1920w" data-sizes="auto" width="1920" height="1080" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Estonian Young Contemporary Art Union. Collage. 2023.</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


Elo Vahtrik Elo Vahtrik is an artist based in Mustamäe. Vahtrik’s work explores the plasticity and relations between body and perception.

Thirst

Art as a way of creating safer spaces, possibilities for intimacy and connection. A conversation with Sarah Nõmm and Maria Izabella Lehtsaar

Elo Vahtrik

Elo Vahtrik is an artist based in Mustamäe. Vahtrik’s work explores the plasticity and relations between body and perception.