digikaas

The Many Faces of You


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


Keiu Krikmann


<p>The seventh issue of A Shade Colder takes a closer look at our many faces, around and within. The face is a marker of identity, supposedly one that helps others to recognise us throughout our lives, yet a face is subject to considerable change throughout a person’s life, and we all wear several. For better or worse, some of our faces are only revealed in private, while others are crafted for various public encounters.</p>



<p>The cover of this issue features a gallery of faces, created as part of <strong>Edith Karlson</strong>’s latest work to be exhibited at the 60th Venice Biennale. Ahead of the opening, Karlson was interviewed by <strong>Cecilia Alemani</strong> – they discuss her practice, often inspired by impulses hidden just beneath the surface. <strong>Johanna Hedva</strong>’s short story also looks at the more devious side of life and the joy and horror that placing yourself outside social norms evokes. The piece is illustrated by <strong>Pire Sova</strong>.</p>



<p><strong>Mētra Saberova</strong> writes about putting on a different face quite literally, or developments in the art of drag in the Baltics. Drag as a craft was born in a very different context, yet it is now flourishing in the queer scenes of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. The faces we see at drag shows are often developed to empower the performers and their audiences, combat marginalisation, and for queer people to come together. Yet sometimes, people struggle with finding solidarity when the face of another is very different from theirs. The question of cultivating solidarity is addressed in the commentary section – art professionals share their experiences with what it means to nurture and show solidarity from within the art world. The relevance of politics in art is also discussed in an interview with artist <strong>Tai Shani</strong> by <strong>Lilian Hiob</strong>.</p>



<p>Alongside our regular events guide, this issue turns its gaze towards the Southern region of Estonia – <strong>Kaarin Kivirähk</strong> takes a deeper look at art outside the capital, as 2024 marks the year Tartu, the second largest city in Estonia, located in the south of the country, bears the title of European Capital of Culture. We also introduce two artists with a strong connection to Tartu. First being <strong>Jevgeni Zolotko</strong>, an artist whose unique practice and voice is explored in an interview by <strong>Anti Saar</strong>. And secondly, <strong>Ülo Sooster, </strong>a notable surrealist and abstract artist, originally from Tartu, but imprisoned and deported by the Soviet regime in the 1940s. Later, he made a life for himself among Moscow dissident artists, and <strong>Elnara Taidre</strong> introduces his legacy and questions of identity and belonging so relevant in the eastern part of Europe today. Showing a different face in late Soviet life, one where despite the drab everyday, people were dreaming big and actively working towards a more inspiring life, <strong>Triin Reidla</strong> writes about postmodern private houses, spectacular both visually and due to the context they were born in.<br>As A Shade Colder continues supporting Ukrainian art, we are glad to present a special edition of stickers by <strong>Lucy Ivanova</strong> and will also 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/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-1024x682.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-1184x788.jpg 1184w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-1522x1013.jpg 1522w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-1690x1125.jpg 1690w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-2028x1350.jpg 2028w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-2705x1800.jpg 2705w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-2959x1969.jpg 2959w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/joonistus-copy3-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1704" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Illustration: Martina Gofman &amp; Johanna Ruukholm,<em> The Many Faces of You</em>, 2024</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


joonistus copy3

Editorial. The Many Faces of You


<p><strong>Johanna Hedva</strong> is a Korean American writer, artist, and musician, who was raised in Los Angeles by a family of witches, and now lives in LA and Berlin.</p>


Johanna Hedva

Illustrations


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-225x300.jpg 225w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-591x788.jpg 591w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-760x1013.jpg 760w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-844x1125.jpg 844w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-1013x1350.jpg 1013w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-1350x1800.jpg 1350w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-1477x1969.jpg 1477w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-.Precision-That-Pain-and-Desire-Make-Of-Each-Other.-2024-copy-scaled.jpg 1920w" data-sizes="auto" width="1920" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Pire Sova, <em>&#8230;Precision That Pain and Desire Make Of Each Other&#8230;,</em> 2024</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>I must confess a theft. But is it a theft? I mean, it will grow back, she was not entirely shanked. They tell me this is worse than theft and then they purr amongst themselves and one, like his throat tickles, coughs about whether they can charge me with criminal battery or assault or both and, ooh, they get giddy and pink, they want to add stalking to the charges too. They say it will go easier for me if I confess because this is the second time I’ve been here (which of course means they’ve only caught me a paltry twice), so they can also get me on serial charges, but when I ask them to clarify what easier means, they, making little fake laughs, blow air out their wamblecropt mouths. They ask if I will sell what I took. Idiots! Absolutely not! No imagination. They ask what I plan to do with it, what I use it for. “I will keep it,” I say, “I’m working on a project.” “A project?” they say, and the tone of their voices is like cut wings that don’t work. Their uniforms are beige, the colour of—well, because of my project, I won’t say. Part of my project is to no longer engage with that which leaves me indifferent. Part of my project is that I want to be smashed into desire and nothing else, to be soaked in appetite is to be wet with life and I want the consequential clarity of that, only that, not an iota of anything vague or faint or dull, certainly not fucking beige. It takes a lot of work to strain for only what I desire, firstly because it’s so hard to define, I mean, what qualifies and what doesn’t? How is a craving, say, different from a need? When does an ache become a fever? See, clarity like this requires vigilance.</p>



<p>“So,” they say, “you crawl up behind women and cut off their hair? What kind of perverted sack of shit are you?” I ask them to clarify what they mean by perverted, I’d like to confirm that it fits into my project or not, and then they produce a harder, more forceful kind of serrated laughing. I tell them that I’d like to point out that criminal battery means I’ve caused bodily harm, and since a haircut is the most painless of all subtractive interactions a human body can have at the hands of another human, the most they can get me on is stalking because, I’ll allow, yes, I do take care to find and follow the right woman, exactly the right woman, I don’t just take anyone’s hair, what kind of snollygoster hick do they think I am? They tell me I better pray the woman whose hair I took doesn’t press charges. I make my own fake laugh then clarify that, when <em>I</em> pray, <em>if</em> I pray, it’ll not be for myself, no sir. But they have already stopped flipping the pages on their clipboards. “If I were gonna pray, <em>sir</em>,” I keep going, “it would be for the motherfuckingly repulsive police and their abominable fucking uniforms the colour of”—you’re right, obviously, I don’t say this out loud. They release me and I go home and google “how to insult a child”—you’re a grey sprinkle on a rainbow cupcake—and laugh myself pure. No clarification needed.</p>



<p>My project was ignited in a dream. There was a person who had the body and face of a young girl I didn’t know but inside her was my mother. I know this because she is bloviating with her dry old rage. She is much smaller than me – my mother stuffed into this tiny body – but somehow, I am the cramped and limited one. She stands in a nettle patch and her legs sprout riled red spots, and I can feel this in my own legs, a determining burn. She is telling me that this pain belongs to me. “This pain <em>is</em> you,” she says. But how? It’s happening to <em>your</em> body, not mine. At this she throws her little kindergarten head back and cackles a laugh aged by hate. “You understand now, don’t you,” she says. “Fucking cunt, now do you see?”</p>



<p>As soon as I leave the police station, I am already planning the next one. I want it to happen at the opera. I’m a drama queen. All that flowing blow-dried hair tumbling down exfoliated and lotioned shoulders. I’ll need to find the kind of woman who would obviously go to the opera, the kind with season tickets. I’ll buy season tickets for myself and scope it out. Oooh, this one will take a long time. Yes, good. I like it best when there’s longing.</p>



<p>Money is not a problem, in case you were wondering. I have what my mother left me. This is also part of the project. To use all of my inheritance on it, in this way, she is (finally!) apologising to me, and I get to decide (and I <em>will</em> take <em>my</em> time) whether or not I want to accept.&nbsp;</p>



<p>You’re probably wondering what my mother’s hair was like, if that’s the <em>reason</em> for my project. Idiots! No imagination. The question you should be asking instead, if indeed you’re still wedded to that ruse causality, is how exactly I am, if I am at all, delineating, which is to say, making perfectly clear, the difference between desire and pain. Like, is there even one?</p>



<p>I found her. She came on the third night of <em>Medea</em>. Sixth row, centre, money. One of the only ones with her hair down. 40s, white, a strapless black gown, like Sargent’s <em>Madame X</em>, if you squint. The hair was shining, the colour of brown eggshells, oh. To crack her egg. The man at her side, as they always are, was nothing special. She sat back in her seat against her glorious hair. This is what would be tricky. I’d need to be directly behind her and make the cut softly, quickly. If she was sitting on it, I wouldn’t be able to take the hair with me, I’d have to leave it there. But it would still be worth it. At the end of the show, she’d stand to clap, and it would just fall away from her, one clean chop. I could cum at the thought of it. Sweet sharp yearn that hurts the most. She’d feel lighter, a swift weightlessness, and she’d turn and see it all there, sprawled on the seat, the years it took to grow, how much money it drank in shampoo, fancy conditioner, taking it to the salon to be tended, kept, would she scream? No, probably just a gasp, but a perfect one. She’d grip the stupid elbow of her man and, of course, he wouldn’t have a clue what to do. He’d whirl around with that blunt hunt of men, seeking the thing beyond the periphery of their vision, they can only ever muster an <em>ugh</em> aimed at what’s not there. See, it’s that men cannot hear the precision that pain and desire make of each other, men only ever hear the blurring. It’s a sort of gift from God – one of the few! – that men are tone deaf to this euphony. It means there is an entire range of coherence they can’t know, which means an entire clarification all to and for ourselves.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-225x300.jpg 225w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-591x788.jpg 591w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-760x1013.jpg 760w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-844x1125.jpg 844w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-1013x1350.jpg 1013w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-1350x1800.jpg 1350w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-1477x1969.jpg 1477w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Think-of-Theft-but-as-a-Gift-2024-copy-scaled.jpg 1920w" data-sizes="auto" width="1920" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Pire Sova, <em>Think of Theft but as a Gift</em>, 2024</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/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-225x300.jpg 225w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-768x1024.jpg 768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-591x788.jpg 591w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-760x1013.jpg 760w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-844x1125.jpg 844w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-1013x1350.jpg 1013w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-1350x1800.jpg 1350w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-1477x1969.jpg 1477w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Pire-Sova-Part-of-My-Project-Is-That-I-Want-to-Be-Smashed-Into-Desire-and-Absolutely-Nothing-Else-to-Be-Soaked-in-Appetite-Is-to-Be-Wet-With-Life.-2024-copy-scaled.jpg 1920w" data-sizes="auto" width="1920" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Pire Sova, <em>Part of My Project Is That I Want to Be Smashed Into Desire and Absolutely Nothing Else, to Be Soaked in Appetite Is to Be Wet With Life…</em>, 2024</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Now you’re probably wondering what my own hair looks like, are you picturing me bald? That <em>that’s</em> why I steal the hair of other women? To make up for my lack? This is no longer the 20th century, we don’t need to stay yoked to the psychoanalytical conception of desire as lack! Or, &#8230; or are you imagining that I have gorgeous, abundant hair down to my hips, my knees, my ankles? Waves of softness that smell of narcissus? That I take from other women, so they won’t have what I have, that I hoard the wealth for myself? Better – but still thinking in a binary. A have versus a have-not. Come on, you can do better.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Let me suggest that the question is not where the line is between pain and desire, but that the universe is not constructed with lines at all. Think of the double-slit experiment, where atoms behave like particles and also like waves. They are both tiny little pieces and one fluid continuous shape. I’m trying to explain to you that the point of my project is a sort of re-education that I’m enforcing upon myself to root out the need for clarity at all, which is hard, and weird, because I keep asking for clarity but when it comes it’s never right. My hypothesis was that it would quell everything, but so far, it’s only made me hunger more.</p>



<p>Let me put it this way: When my mother told me her pain was me, see, I learned that my pain was also her, not that these belonged to us, but that they <em>were </em>us, and with this curse, this little spark of a law, I’ve come to know, as if it’s a thirst in the universe that I’m letting drink from myself, that when you cut into matter you’re also cutting into energy, like a witch, like an alchemist, you, on a quantum level, you’re simultaneously destroying and creating the wave; see, when I bring my scissors close to her head I’m not cleaving her but begetting her, continuing us, I’m gravid, it’s a kind of care, a maternal nurturing that pours from me. It’s that I am her well.</p>



<p>I called the box office and asked to reserve the centre seat in the 7th row. Yes, for the entire season. I paid the bloated fee they asked for. I went to every show. She came three weeks into the production after <em>Medea</em> – <em>Carmen</em>, I’d been waiting by then for five months, damp with the songs of both. I felt my breath leap as she came down the aisle to take her seat. My clit jack-knifed through my expensive designer clothes. Her head was right in front of mine. The lights went down. The curtain parted. The orchestra started. Her stupid man sat in a lump beside her. She sat on her hair as I’d planned and I watched it stream over her shoulders, puffing out a little where it was caught between her back and the seat. This woman, my well. I’d brought my best scissors, they gleamed as I stole them from my pocket. I could see heads in my row turning toward me as I raised them up. Oh! Then she!—she pulled her hair free! With an absent hand, fanning it out right at me. For me. It brushed my knees, a strand of it fell on my ready hand. Her kiss. A woman in my row started to make a whimpering noise, jerking her head around, she wanted to stop me. I let myself look right at her, square in the eyes, and for a split second, this protester was a well for me as I was a well for her, and we drank from each other, and both wanted more. I turned back to 6th row centre. Madame X. My hunger burned clear from my cunt and now the hair was like a rope in my hand, I tugged it with a vicious, loving yank, and I listened for the sound that would come next. The cut that was not a cut, the bite that’s also a pit, a <em>mine</em> both noun and pronoun. Think of theft but as a gift. Reader: I clarified her.</p>


Pire Sova, Part of My Project Is That I Want to Be Smashed Into Desire and Absolutely Nothing Else, to Be Soaked in Appetite Is to Be Wet With Life…, 2024 copy

A mouth is more than a hole


<p><strong>Cecilia Alemani</strong> is an Italian curator based in New York City.  Since 2011, she has been the Donald R. Mullen, Jr. Director &amp; Chief Curator of High Line Art, the public art program presented by the High Line in New York City. From 2020 to 2022, she served as artistic director of the 59th Venice Biennale, where she curated the acclaimed exhibition <em>The Milk of Dreams</em>.</p>


Cecilia Alemani

veebi edith1

Irony is not a productive tool, unless compassion and empathy are used alongside it – Interview with Edith Karlson


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


Kaarin Kivirähk

kollaaž veebi

Art and solidarity


<p><strong>Lilian Hiob</strong> is a curator and gallerist. She is manager at Temnikova &amp; Kasela gallery. Lilian is also the founder of Hoib gallery, an independent exhibition space located in her basement. Together with Siim Preiman she hosts Vitamin K, a radio show dedicated to contemporary art on IDA radio.</p>


Lilian Hiob


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-217x300.jpg 217w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-741x1024.jpg 741w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-570x788.jpg 570w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-733x1013.jpg 733w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-814x1125.jpg 814w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-977x1350.jpg 977w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-1303x1800.jpg 1303w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-1425x1969.jpg 1425w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/10-copy-scaled.jpg 1853w" data-sizes="auto" width="1853" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Tai Shani, <em>Astrolatrous Nucleus</em>, 2024, Watercolour and acrylic on paper, 20x30cm. Courtesy of the artist</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Tai Shani’s work displays intricate layers exploring feminism and matriarchal utopias, and examines socio-political landscapes in a remarkably nuanced manner. Her candid engagement with political and humanitarian crises resonates deeply with audiences, initiating discussions, conflicts even. The following conversation, aims to delve not only into her artistic practice but also questions of solidarity, activism, and the notion of otherness that runs like a thread through Tai Shani’s work.</p>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>Lilian Hiob: In 2019, alongside Lawrence Abu Hamdan, Helen Cammock and Oscar Murillo, you collectively received the Turner Prize—a departure from the tradition of honouring a single artist. Can you walk us through the discussions that led to this collective decision? What prompted this shift from individual recognition to a shared acknowledgement among nominees?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>Tai Shani: We all met for the first time and in that meeting we all felt similarly, that it felt like the right thing to do. Even though our practices and approaches are really different, all of our work is concerned with ideas around power, how societies are organised, and justice, so it felt counter-ethical that only one of us would win.</p><p>We made that decision quite quickly and it felt very much in the spirit of the moment. It was at the end of a period that felt very hopeful, especially for people in the UK. There was a real mass movement behind Jeremy Corbyn and the potential of a socialist government. There was a feeling we were moving towards a more hopeful future and that the years of social justice awareness and education was bringing people to a point of action and results, it felt like a change was about to happen. And it was just before Covid, that again felt like a possibility for a moment of change.</p></div></div>



<div class="q-and-a" class="wp-block-www-blocks-q-and-a-block"><div class="question"><p>LH: You work across a wide variety of media: from experimental text to film to sculpture, installation, performance, work on paper – can you shed light on your process and how you decide on the appropriate media for conveying specific ideas.</p></div><div class="answer"><p>TS: I think it&#8217;s quite collage-y in terms of process, even though the work itself maybe does feel like it has a very specific thread that runs through it. It often is a mixture of things like problem solving, and then weird translations of affects that you&#8217;ve collected through procrastination. You build a language over years. You build a vernacular or a grammar that you use quite automatically. I often start by writing at the beginning of a project, but the thinking around the writing often leads to other things. Also, every space is different, every context is different and that also informs the way you make work. For example, in <em>Cosmic House</em> (upcoming solo exhibition at the Jencks Foundation<strong> </strong>in April 2024), it&#8217;s such a specific context that obviously the beginning of the work is the house itself. It&#8217;s not thinking what is the exhibition I want to do, but how am I going to respond to this and build an exhibition in dialogue with the space?</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/2024/03/3-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-675x1013.jpg 675w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-1200x1800.jpg 1200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-1313x1969.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/3-copy-scaled.jpg 1707w" data-sizes="auto" width="1707" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Tai Shani, <em>Love For The Living In Our Hieromantic Objects of Love</em>, 2023, KM21 Den Haag. Courtesy the artist and KM21. Photo: Peter Cox</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>LH: How do mythology and fantasy serve as tools for you to address contemporary issues or engage with societal norms in your work?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>TS: Fantasy is a blueprint for how our desire functions; I don&#8217;t think any of us are really outside of it. There&#8217;s something about the archetype-ness that I find interesting – you find certain archetypes in different cultures, primal storytelling about relationships, how we behave, justice, love, about how we are in the world that crosses cultures. I find it interesting how <em>Antigone</em>, which is one of my favourite plays, one of the most adapted plays in the world, is a deeply political play. And it&#8217;s one that has been relevant for thousands of years.</p><p>The first time I read Sean Bonney&#8217;s poetry, I was very affected by it because he wrote in extremely euphoric and impassioned way about the possibilities of political emancipation. He talks to it in a poetic, delirious way that was very affective for me. Or how Jackie Wang writes about the communist affect. I think there&#8217;s something about the effect of a horizon that is in my work, a sense of the possibility of things going towards something. It’s a bittersweet feeling always and it&#8217;s also violent in itself because our lives are short and history is long and the horizon is very far away. Sometimes it can be very difficult because history not symmetrical, it&#8217;s not balanced. You might endure only disappointments in your lifetime while contributing to the dismantling of hierarchies; you might never experience the joy of seeing a change, but you have the joy of solidarity, of sharing in a vision that people before you have participated in, and you enjoy.</p><p>You are also already benefiting from the fruition of efforts of people that went before you, that fought in really dangerous conditions so that you can enjoy certain things in safety – to be a feminist, to be anti-racist. There are things that have come before you. There has always been a drive for egalitarianism, there is a desire to be free from the violence and the oppression of poverty, of racism, of gender, of sexual expression. I don&#8217;t see what else is worthy of that form of engagement if you&#8217;re not religious than trying to imagine something better for us. We deserve better, really.</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/2024/03/2-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/2-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Tai Shani,<em> Our Hieromantic Objects of Love</em>, 2023, Installation View, KM21 Den Haag. Courtesy the artist and KM21. Photo: Peter Cox</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>LH: How has your engagement with feminist discourse and visionary futurism evolved from the piece <em>DC Semiramis</em> (2018) which brought you the Turner Prize in 2019, to the upcoming solo exhibition <em>The Cosmic House</em> at the Jencks Foundation in April 2024, which you have described as a dream come true invite (congratulations on that!)?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>TS: I became interested in feminism through art making. There wasn&#8217;t a moment that thought that everything is upside down or constructed in an unfair way. At the beginning I was interested in a very girl bossy idea of what feminism was. While I was teaching at the university, I became aware and orientated towards a queer, intersectional feminism, but I think it all started for me as I tried to understand the sexual and gendered violence that I experienced as a young person growing up in a patriarchal world and seeing the social awakening around ideas of social justice. Conversations around sexual consent really blew my mind when they first started happening because as a young person, I was completely illiterate around these things.</p><p>This made me educate myself more on these teachings and it became more complex. I rejected essentialist feminism and understood that in a patriarchal system – and everyone exists in that system, even though we don’t benefit equally from it – it&#8217;s not about the essence of being a woman or a man that predisposes you to be patriarchal. It&#8217;s a system that empowers and facilitates the desires of a group of people that happen to be historically men. But women’s specific subject position, like race and class, puts them in receipt of benefits from this system as well, and they also contribute to it.</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/2024/03/9-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-300x240.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-1024x819.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-985x788.jpg 985w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-1266x1013.jpg 1266w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-1406x1125.jpg 1406w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-1688x1350.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-2250x1800.jpg 2250w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-2461x1969.jpg 2461w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/9-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2048" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Tai Shani, <em>MBR: And Above The Beautiful Commune</em>, 2023, Installation View, CAC Cincinatti. Courtesy the artist and Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH, Photo: Wes Battoclette</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/2024/03/6-2-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-300x240.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-1024x819.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-985x788.jpg 985w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-1266x1013.jpg 1266w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-1406x1125.jpg 1406w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-1688x1350.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-2250x1800.jpg 2250w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-2461x1969.jpg 2461w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/6-2-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2048" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Tai Shani, <em>Still from My Bodily Remains, Your<br>Bodily Remains and All the Bodily Remains that<br>Ever Were and Ever Will Be</em>, 2023. Courtesy of the artist</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/2024/03/7.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/7-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/7-300x176.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/7-1024x599.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/7-1347x788.jpg 1347w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/7-1731x1013.jpg 1731w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/7.jpg 1914w" data-sizes="auto" width="1914" height="1120" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Tai Shani, <em>MBR: And Above The Beautiful Commune</em>, 2023, Installation View, CAC Cincinatti. Courtesy the artist and Contemporary Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH, Photo: Wes Battoclette</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>LH: Tai, your political convictions have been clear long before the latest escalation of conflict in the Middle East in 2023. How does your steadfast stance as an artist intersect with these evolving dynamics, shaping your creative practice amidst charged socio-political climates?</p></div><div class="answer"><p>TS: My work is concerned with ideas that are adjacent to it, but it’s not completely intertwined.</p><p>I lived in Israel for eight years; my family are Jewish on both sides. My grandmother on my dad&#8217;s side moved there in the 1930s. She was fleeing the rise of antisemitism in Belarus. My mom was born a month after the camps were liberated, after a failed abortion. Every single person from my family who didn&#8217;t die in the Holocaust is buried in Israel.</p><p>When I lived in Israel, I had a very loose sense of right and wrong around the politics towards Palestinians in Israel. And I knew I couldn&#8217;t serve in the military – I&#8217;m a pacifist and this is wrong – that was something that was definite for me, but I didn’t have an explicit articulate position around it, like young Israelis that are refusing to serve now that speak towards a colonialist discourse.</p><p>I started to feel called to speak towards on it in 2017, when Jeremy Corbyn, who was leader of the Labour Party at that point, started to be accused of anti-Semitism because of his position on Palestine and Israel. I then felt compelled for the first time in my life to say, I&#8217;m Jewish, and I don&#8217;t think that&#8217;s right, I felt that I had a position to speak from. My mother is considered a Holocaust survivor by the Germans, I do feel a moral duty to call out genocide. I don&#8217;t think that criticising Israel is anti-Semitic. I think it&#8217;s our duty towards each other as well to be critical of atrocity and it&#8217;s our duty towards each other as humans to be protective of each other&#8217;s lives. We live in a fascist age and I think many people are unable, unwilling, incapable of seeing Palestinians as humans.</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/2024/03/image0-1-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-236x300.jpg 236w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-806x1024.jpg 806w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-620x788.jpg 620w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-797x1013.jpg 797w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-886x1125.jpg 886w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-1063x1350.jpg 1063w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-1417x1800.jpg 1417w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-1550x1969.jpg 1550w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/image0-1-copy-scaled.jpg 2015w" data-sizes="auto" width="2015" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Tai Shani</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>LH: It&#8217;s perplexing how our perceptions of nations, humans, races, beliefs and species are often clouded by a sense of &#8220;otherness.&#8221; I feel we as humans have reached the point where we are so alienated from everything, disconnected from one another and the intricacies of our shared struggles. This is why I value this conversation so much with you Tai, for highlighting the worth of every voice and reminding us to nurture empathy towards each other – the cornerstone of our collective humanity.</p></div><div class="answer"></div></div>


3 copy

We deserve better, really – Interview with Tai Shani


<p><strong>Mētra Saberova</strong> is a Latvian queer feminist performance and moving-image artist. Mētra received her BA from the Art Academy of Latvia and completed her postgraduate studies at Central Saint Martins in London. Next to exhibiting, her interests lie in forming sustainable networks between the queer culture and activism in the Baltic region. Mētra is the co-founder and manager of the Baltic Drag King Collective (est. 2019) and part of the core team at Riga Pride since 2022.</p>


Mētra Saberova

01_Helgi Saldo at Baltic Drag Show during Riga Pride 2022. Photo: Krista Saberova and Edgars Tabaks. jpeg copy

The variations in the Baltic Drag scene


<p><strong>Triin Reidla</strong> is a cultural heritage specialist, editor and architectural historian, currently pursuing her doctoral studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She is lecturer and head of the architecture conservation studies module at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her research focuses on Estonian architecture in the 1980s.</p>


Triin Reidla


<p>When you think of life in Soviet Estonia in the 1980s, what do you imagine? Grey everyday life? Brutalist architecture? Pre-fabricated buildings? Kolkhozes and sovkhozes? The end of the Cold War? The Soviet period is mostly seen as drab, grey and depressing. It seems there was no room to dream. Especially because dreams were less likely to come true in a society based on control. But hope dies last, right? In hindsight, we could say that the changes in politics, economy and everyday life in the 1980s paved the way for the collapse of the Soviet Union and Estonia regaining its independence.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-300x225.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-1024x768.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-1051x788.jpg 1051w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-1351x1013.jpg 1351w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-1500x1125.jpg 1500w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-1800x1350.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-2400x1800.jpg 2400w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-2625x1969.jpg 2625w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kadaka-tee-25-Ilmandu-kula-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1920" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>25 Kadaka tee, Ilmandu village near Tallinn. Architect Jaak Huimerind, architectural design 1992. The buildings of Ilmandu village led the way for a new era – that of suburban villages in the middle of a field. This building stands out due to the fact that alongside it, a thorough landscape design by Vaike Parker was also commissioned. Photo: Martin Siplane</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Standardisation as a tool of order</h2>



<p>In Estonia, the 1970s had been a period of political stagnation, with Russification policies implemented all across society.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_2917"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_2917-1">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_2917-1" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">Russification policies were sets of policies through which the Russian language and culture were forced onto other peoples in the Soviet Union. For example, in the 1970s, the number of Russian lessons was increased in schools, while higher pay was offered to teachers of the Russian language. The success stories of learning Russian were also widely publicised in the media.</span> In architecture, the decade was characterised by standardisation. Pre-fabricated tower blocks based on standardised projects were built in the Õismäe district in Tallinn, for example. The construction of the Lasnamäe district was started as well, bringing immigrant workers from other Soviet republics. In rural areas, the construction of such blocks of flats continued alongside the increasingly economically prosperous kolkhozes and sovkhozes. Design and architectural solutions were applied via state or union-wide architectural planning organisations, so pre-set construction norms, solutions, and scales had to be followed. The daily work of architects employed in architectural planning institutions included linking standardised designs to the general plans of cities, and their creativity was often limited to designing new solutions using the pre-fabricated panels.</p>



<p>Two notable events that shook up the field of architecture in Estonia at the time happened in 1979, when the Modernist architect Mart Port was not re-elected as the head of the Association of Architects and in 1980, when the sailing regatta of the 1980 Moscow Summer Olympics took place in Tallinn, prompting the construction of an array of specific project buildings. After 1985, when Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union, freedom of thought and expression was elevated by the new political directions of Glasnost and Perestroika, which aimed to keep the Soviet Union from deteriorating.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Arrival of Postmodernism</h2>



<p>The arrival of Postmodernism in Estonian architecture coincides with the broader social changes the 1980s brought about. The highly regulated boxy Modernist architecture was a fertile ground for opposition to arise, and the critique of Modernism was published increasingly boldly. In parallel, architects were looking for a new creative expression, and Postmodernism was a great tool for achieving this. Critiques and explorations were often published in the Estonian architecture magazine <em>Ehituskunst</em>, for example. Despite the fact that accessing information from outside the Soviet Union was restricted, Estonian architects were still familiar with texts of Postmodern theorists, such as Robert Venturi and Charles Jencks. They just had to make more of an effort: people would commonly have to visit multiple libraries since each had a different foreign architecture magazine in stock. An equally important role was played by local professional connections, as establishing these led to the formation of creative collectives. One such example was the group that operated under the name of the Tallinn School, which mostly included architects but also artists and other creatives.&nbsp;</p>



<p>To conclude, everyone was tired of pre-fabricated houses and needed a change. Even though pre-fabricated houses were widely constructed until the end of the Soviet period, interestingly, the first signs of more liberal architecture appeared in the architectural planning organisations focusing on developing rural areas. The increasing economic prosperity of kolkhozes and sovkhozes meant it became possible to design non-standardised Postmodern buildings, such as the Paide Cultural Centre (Eesti Maaehitusprojekt, architect Hans Kõll, design 1985) and Lihula Cultural Centre (EKE projekt, architect Rein Tomingas, design 1980–1985).</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-two-images-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-1519x1013.jpg 1519w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-1687x1125.jpg 1687w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-2953x1969.jpg 2953w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kesk-Kaare-12a-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>12a Kesk-Kaare Street, Viljandi. Arhitekt Kalvi Voolaid, architectural design 1978. The owner wanted to build the house since living in a flat was unacceptable for them. The architect Kalvi Voolaid managed to creatively subvert requirements that had been previously set for the design, making it stand out among the surrounding 1950s houses with their uniform gable roofs. Photo: Martin Siplane</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/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Nisu-48-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>48 Nisu Street, Tartu. Architect Veljo Kaasik, architectural design 1982. The tiling of the facade was created and hand-made by the owner, who had a technical education. The facade is particularly spectacular due to the sculpted surface of the tiles. Photo: Martin Siplane</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Postmodern private houses</h2>



<p>The overall atmosphere of the 1980s has been described as thick with anticipation. For architects, a way to express this was to design private houses alongside their day jobs. The Postmodern private houses of the 1980s were large, consisting of various volumes, multileveled roofs, unusually shaped windows, doors and other details. Each house looked unique, expressing a balance between the creativity of the architect and the desires of the commissioner – this was the first time a dialogue of this kind was possible in the Soviet Union. While local architects managed to acquire information about the latest trends in international architecture, the majority of people shaped their ideal home while travelling abroad, browsing magazines or via (Finnish) television,<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_2917"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_2917-2">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_2917-2" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">As Finnish TV broadcasts made their way across the Gulf of Finland, Finnish television could be illegally watched in the northern parts of Estonia. The Finnish programmes were of great interest to Estonians, as they included content that was not shown in the Soviet Union.</span> where series such as <em>Dallas</em>, <em>The Bold and the Beautiful</em> and <em>Santa Barbara</em> were broadcast. A former owner of a postmodernist house said that designing it with the architect felt liberating – they could afford something that had not been allowed in the Soviet period.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Reality vs dreams</h2>



<p>Lofty ideas were often deflated by the reality of Soviet life. There were restrictions and rules for private houses: until 1987, the usable area was limited to 90 m<sup>2</sup>, later to 130 m<sup>2</sup> per house. This prompted the commissioners and architects to find solutions to increase the size of private houses using utility spaces. The projects listed functions for spaces that were different to what the spaces were really used. Often, spaces were labelled as something other: attics had summer lounges or laundry rooms, and cellars had storage spaces for vegetables, fruit or firewood. Large lobbies with staircases also increased the general area of these houses.</p>



<p>Once a lot was allocated to a person, the contract concluded that the house had to be built by the owner. That meant that all the different parts of the construction, which are today done by different contractors, at that time had to be undertaken by the future homeowner. For example, the wood had to be logged from the forest and cut into floorboards by the owner. The 1980s were also characterised by the growing deficit of all kinds of goods, including construction materials. The quality and availability of construction materials fluctuated. For example, different batches of the same construction material could be of a completely different quality – one batch of silicate brick would be strong enough to lay a wall, and another would crumble in the hands of builders. This meant that connections became extremely important to find materials or find assistance for larger tasks (such as pouring the foundation). Understandably, this was not discussed publicly, but the process often involved back-alley barter deals. If you didn&#8217;t have money (and that was mostly the case), you could barter using vodka, for example. As the process of planning was erratic, the construction of private houses took around ten years. It was not uncommon for people to move into partly-completed buildings and continue construction.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Even though Postmodernist private houses look impressive, one could even say exclusive, they were, for the most part, constructed by people who were above average entrepreneurs, determined and dared to dream; they saw possibilities within the Soviet system and did not want to live in standardised homes. But, of course, luck and chance also played a role.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-300x200.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-1024x683.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-1182x788.jpg 1182w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-1520x1013.jpg 1520w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-1688x1125.jpg 1688w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-2025x1350.jpg 2025w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-2700x1800.jpg 2700w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-2954x1969.jpg 2954w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Ravila-tanava-paarismaja-Tartus-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1706" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Ravila Street duplex house in Tartu in the Arhitekti district, where one architect was appointed to develop 50 lots. This meant that the architect could design each private house with the commissioner individually. One side of Ravila Street was designed by Ado Eigi. Photo: Martin Siplane</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The changing winds of the 1990s</h2>



<p>In 1991, Estonia became independent again. This caused turbulence across society – the old rules had gone out of the window, and the new had not yet been established. Economically, it was a period of massive uncertainty, and in the early 90s, there was a deficit in everything. In a society adapting to a market economy, some people learned the new rules quickly. They could afford extravagant Mcmansions, to use a more widely-known term. The village of Ilmandu (also known by its colloquial name Lollideküla or the Village of Fools) was among the first of its kind: an array of large private houses with little turrets were built on a beautiful seaside cliff. People no longer had to build everything themselves and follow the Soviet regulations. Private houses became a symbol of the owner&#8217;s success.</p>



<p>However, the changing times also had a more unfortunate side: for many, the dream of owning a home was lost. In the 1980s and early 1990s, a large number of empty lots and unfinished houses were sold. While empty lots attracted new construction, even now, 30 years later, we see some of these houses in scaffolding, standing like monuments to lost dreams.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">The years after</h2>



<p>The story of postmodern private houses in the 1980s and 1990s is somewhat curious and still needs further research. It is a period in architectural history that was shaped by the expectations and anticipations of newly opened borders. The architecture in Soviet Estonia kept up with the aesthetic developments of the rest of the world. Each building has a very personal story to tell about the people who constructed it and the families who live(d) there – to a degree, you can see this on the facades. Since these are private houses and today, private property is often inaccessible, many of the stories remain unheard. Still, all of these stories matter, as they would help to create a better account of the multifaceted nature of architectural history and highlight the architectural and cultural value of these buildings. Postmodern buildings did have an effect on what Estonians value in private houses today – Ilmandu village started the tradition of constructing villages on fields near the city, which is still evident to this day.</p>


Kadaka tee 25, Ilmandu küla copy

Bold and beautiful – Estonian private houses from the 1980s


<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-295x300.jpg 295w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-1006x1024.jpg 1006w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-774x788.jpg 774w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-995x1013.jpg 995w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-1105x1125.jpg 1105w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-1326x1350.jpg 1326w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar-1768x1800.jpg 1768w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/mohar.jpg 1907w" data-sizes="auto" width="1907" height="1941" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Mohar Kalra</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>In this issue we are focusing on the art scene in the Southern part of Estonia which is known for its mixed cultural heritage and long history, not to mention the beautiful and extraordinary nature of the area which inspired many Estonian artists in the early 20th century.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>Tartu as the centre of the region is the university town which is well known for its classical architecture and historical art school Pallas which dominated the Estonian art scene in the first half of 20th century. Pallas University of Applied Sciences still functions today. Nowadays Tartu is also known for its young and vibrant queer scene and street art festivals.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Smaller towns, such as Võru or Viljandi have become interesting cultural spots for contemporary art. In Viljandi there is a new art residency, run by the Rüki gallery, and a unique museum of Estonian outsider art. Besides a museum with an art gallery, there is also a new studio house for local artists in Võru.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>The coastline of Lake Peipus is home for the Old Believers (starovéry) and the South eastern part is the land of the Seto people who have their own language and customs.&nbsp;</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Mohar Kalra, artist</h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-300x209.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-1024x713.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-1131x788.jpg 1131w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-1454x1013.jpg 1454w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-1615x1125.jpg 1615w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-1938x1350.jpg 1938w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-2584x1800.jpg 2584w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/john-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1783" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>John Grzinich</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>Every August, for one day, the residents of the Tammelinn neighbourhood in Tartu set up small cafes in their backyards and offer drinks, pastries, music and a space to float around for an afternoon – known as the Tammelinna Kodukohvikutepäev (The Tammelinn Home Café Day). Among the lush gardens that one can usually only glimpse from afar, it makes for a wonderfully intimate way to understand what &#8220;home&#8221; means in Tartu.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">John Grzinich, artist&nbsp;</h2>



<p>From 29 April to 10 May, I will be coordinating a series of events in Põlvamaa under the title &#8216;Koidukoor&#8217; to celebrate the &#8216;dawn chorus&#8217; phenomenon. This will include a series of early morning guided listening walks during the week and a &#8216;sound camp&#8217; live audio streaming session on the weekend as a contribution to the 24-hour International Dawn Chorus Day global radio program. For this period, we will be hosting several artists from the Soundcamp cooperative in London. They are excited to visit, as the richness of bird song in south Estonia is always a highlight for them.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-251x300.jpg 251w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-858x1024.jpg 858w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-660x788.jpg 660w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-848x1013.jpg 848w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-942x1125.jpg 942w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-1131x1350.jpg 1131w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana-1507x1800.jpg 1507w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/jana.jpg 1644w" data-sizes="auto" width="1644" height="1963" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jana Huul</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Jana Huul, gallerist</h2>



<p>I admire sacred groves and one such site, Tammetsõõr, is located in Kütiorg, on the estate previously owned by the Estonian folklorist Mikk Sarv, whose parents managed to safeguard it throughout the Soviet period. On the other side of Kütiorg, the artist Peeter Laurits also has a house. Tammetsõõr is a place where many cultural events have started and an area where people involved in art and culture live. This year, the 5th Uma Pido, a festival focused on elevating the slowly disappearing local Võru language will be held in Intsikurmu, Põlva. I would also like to highlight Vana-Võromaa Kultuurikoda, where solo exhibitions by Evi Tihemets and Aimur Takk will be taking place in the summer and at the end of the summer, a curatorial project by Margit Säde and Johanna Ulfsak will open as well.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">Šelda Puķīte, curator</h2>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignleft"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-300x198.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-1024x676.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-1193x788.jpg 1193w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-1534x1013.jpg 1534w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-1704x1125.jpg 1704w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-2044x1350.jpg 2044w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-2726x1800.jpg 2726w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/selda-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="1691" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Šelda Puķīte</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>The Tartu2024 programme will no doubt promise a rich diversity of events throughout the year in the larger cities of south Estonia, and for culture-thirsty crowds there will be a lot to experience. Still, sometimes the most exciting gems are not found in the cities, but out in the countryside where amazingly enthusiastic people have built small islands. Two of them are the Voronya Gallery in Varnja village located on the Onion Route near Lake Peipus, and the Maajaam Art and Technology Farm located in Otepää parish. The fishing village of Varnja is a charming summer destination in any year, with locals selling fresh produce from their gardens as well as delicious smoked fish. At the same time, Voronya Gallery offers a versatile cultural programme complemented by its famous waffles and moonshine. For those who want to combine their love of nature, art, and science, the Maajaam outdoor exhibition Wild Bits scattered through the meadows, forests and swamps will provide an opportunity to do just that and hopefully also meet the ‘boss’ of the property, the smiling Dalmatian dog.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-300x239.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-1024x816.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-989x788.jpg 989w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-1271x1013.jpg 1271w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-1412x1125.jpg 1412w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-1694x1350.jpg 1694w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-2259x1800.jpg 2259w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3-2471x1969.jpg 2471w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/04/kaart3.jpg 2520w" data-sizes="auto" width="2520" height="2008" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Map of Southern Estonia</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">1 TARTU</h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">4 exhibitions celebrating Surrealism 100th birthday</h3><div class="location01"><p>Various <a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/naitus-surrealism-100-praha-tartu-ja-teised-lood-1/">dates</a></p><p>Estonian National Museum, Tartu Art Museum, Pallas Gallery</p></div><div class="description01"></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Street art festival Stencibility </h3><div class="location02"><p>4 – 7 July</p><p><a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/stencibility-tanavakunsti-festival-2024-1/">Tartu urban space</a></p></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Tartu Art Week</h3><div class="location01"><p>Every second week of the month</p></div><div class="description01"></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Estonian Fashion Festival</h3><div class="location02"><p>6 &#8211; 9 <a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/estonian-fashion-festival-1/">June</a></p></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Krista Dzudzilo’s all the possibilities that existed</h3><div class="location01"><p>28.3.2024 — 4.5.2024</p><p>Kogo gallery in collaboration with Kim? Contemporary Art Centre in Riga</p></div><div class="description01"></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Tartu Pride Art Programme</h3><div class="location02"><p>12–18 August</p><p><a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/tartu-2024-pride-1/">City of Tartu</a></p></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Ajuokse V</h3><div class="location01"><p>31 August</p><p>Ajuokse avangaar</p></div><div class="description01"><p>birthday festival featuring alternative art market, punk bands, exhibition openings etc.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">International group exhibition Look into my Ice on climate crisis</h3><div class="location02"><p><a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/grupinaitus-look-into-my-ice-1/">5 July – 18 August</a></p><p>Tartu Art House</p></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">International technological art exhibition Enter Woodland Spirits</h3><div class="location01"><p><a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/naitus-metsavaimud-masinas-1/">28 June – 25 August</a></p><p>Estonian Literary Museum, University of Tartu Natural History Museum</p></div><div class="description01"></div></div><div><h3 class="title">St. John’s Church</h3><div class="location02"><p>Open throughout the year</p></div><div class="description02"><p>A 14 th century church exhibiting a unique gallery of Medieval terracotta heads.</p></div></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">2 VILJANDI</h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Hidden Worlds Expanding. Eastern European Outsider Art</h3><div class="location01"><p><a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/naitus-kolmes-linnas-varjatud-maailmade-avardumine-1/">29 May – 29 September</a></p><p>Kondas Centre (Viljandi), Valga Museum (Valga), University of Tartu Museum (Tartu)</p></div><div class="description01"></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Survival arts by Toomik, Ole and Mäetamm</h3><div class="location02"><p>9 October 2024 – 25 January 2025</p><p>Kondas Centre</p></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">3 OTEPÄÄ</h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">MAAJAAM</h3><div class="location01"><p>25 May – 15 September</p><p>Otepää county, Maajaam</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Open air <a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/tehnoloogilise-kunsti-vabaohunaitus-metsikud-bitid-1/">exhibition</a> Wild Bits</p></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">4 VARNJA</h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Voronja XI summer exhibition: Views of the Future by Kaili Kask and Raul Oreškin</h3><div class="location01"><p>22 June – 25 August</p><p>Voronja gallery</p></div><div class="description01"></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading">5 VALGA</h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Vares international interdisciplinary residency for spatial practice</h3><div class="location01"><p>VARES Architecture Residency</p></div><div class="description01"><p><em>Every month of 2024, there will be at least one <a href="https://tartu2024.ee/programm/varese-residentide-avalikud-esitlused-1/">public event </a>in the town of Valga, in the framework of which Vares residents will present their work and activities to both locals and a wider audience.</em></p></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></div></div></div>


kaart3

Discovering the Southern part of Estonia


<p><strong>Anti Saar</strong> is a writer and translator based in Tartu. Mostly, he writes for children and translates from French, with a focus on fiction, philosophy and humanities. Currently, he’s in the process of translating the third volume of Marcel Proust’s novel <em>In Search of Lost Time</em> into Estonian.</p>


Anti Saar

Jevgeni Zolotko, Alus I, 2016. Exhibition view at Noorus gallery, Tartu-Photo Jevgeni Zolotko

There has never been a time without art – Interview with Jevgeni Zolotko


<p><strong>Elnara Taidre</strong> is an art historian, critic and curator. She works as head of the graphic arts department at the Art Museum of Estonia.</p>


Elnara Taidre

Ülo Sooster. Värvilised kadakad. 1966. Õli, vineer. 54×77,8

Ülo Sooster between Identities, Artistic Methods, and Art Media


<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Top Picks</strong></h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Kris Lemsalu – DONATELLA. Spiral of Life</h3><div class="location01"><p>Tartu Art Museum, Tartu</p><p>16 March – 21 July</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Known for the striking costumes she makes for herself and her works, Kris Lemsalu combines porcelain, fur, wool, textiles, silicone, found objects, sound and other materials in her works with an original sense of humour to create surreal scenes that are both dizzyingly symbolic and playful. In addition to Lemsalu’s interpretation of one of Tartu’s landmarks, the fountain frozen in an eternal kiss, the exhibition will premiere Lemsalu’s biopic <em>Old Piano</em>, produced in collaboration with Johanna Ulfsak, a selection of new drawings and more familiar installations.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Difficult Pasts – Connected Worlds</h3><div class="location02"><p>Tallinn Art Hall</p><p>10 August – 20 October</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The exhibition highlights the events of the 20th century and their lasting impacts on our everyday lives. The contemporary artworks included in the exhibition often reveal the invisible or marginalised effects of past violence in the Baltic region, including those related to various minority communities and women. Curated by Margaret Tali and Ieva Astahovska.</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/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-676x1013.jpg 676w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-1200x1800.jpg 1200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-1313x1969.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Photo11_10-1-dragged-copy-scaled.jpg 1707w" data-sizes="auto" width="1707" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Still from the film <em>Old Piano</em> by Kris Lemsalu and Johanna Ulfsak, 2024</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Recommendations</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/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-200x300.jpg 200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-683x1024.jpg 683w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-525x788.jpg 525w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-675x1013.jpg 675w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-750x1125.jpg 750w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-900x1350.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-1200x1800.jpg 1200w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-1313x1969.jpg 1313w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Kristina-Ollek_Converting-Energy-and-Oxygen-Grid-no.-3-2024-at-Kai-Art-Center_Photo_Hedi-Jaansoo-scaled.jpg 1707w" data-sizes="auto" width="1707" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Kristina Õllek <em>Converting Energy and Oxygen</em> (Grid no. 3), 2024 at Kai Art Center Photo by Hedi Jaansoo</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">Tuomas A. Laitinen and Kristina Õllek – Cyanoceans</h3><div class="location01"><p>Kai Art Center, Tallinn</p><p>26 January – 4 August</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Using the ocean as a connecting element throughout the exhibition, the duo exhibition by Laitinen and Õllek reflects on whether humans as a species are ready to adapt to the challenges of new climate conditions in the near future.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Down in the Bog – Thinking with Peatlands</h3><div class="location02"><p>EKKM, Tallinn</p><p>14 June – 1 September</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The curator Karolin Tampere’s&nbsp; group exhibition focuses on peatlands as a meeting point for art, environmental issues and the public. Peatlands act as a guide and compass, to learn about historical, cultural and contemporary changes in the environments around us in Northern Norway / Sápmi, Estonia and selected locations internationally.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Jüri Kermik’s Suffolk Knot</h3><div class="location01"><p>Estonian Applied Art and Design Museum, Tallinn</p><p>13 September – 30 December</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Designer Jüri Kermik’s exhibition <em>Suffolk Knot</em> focuses on regionalism in the choice of materials, details and construction methods for seating furniture. It shines a light on the peculiarities and commonalities of furniture-making traditions in the English region of Suffolk and Estonia.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Jevgeni Zolotko – The Secret of Adam</h3><div class="location02"><p>Kumu Art Museum</p><p>31 May 2024 – 5 January 2025</p></div><div class="description02"><p>Jevgeni Zolotko’s solo exhibition <em>The Secret of Adam</em> presents the artist’s recent works, including some brand new works created specifically for the exhibition. Curators: Triin Tulgiste-Toss and Eero Epner.</p></div></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/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-300x300.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-1024x1024.jpg 1024w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-788x788.jpg 788w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-1013x1013.jpg 1013w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-1125x1125.jpg 1125w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-1350x1350.jpg 1350w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-1800x1800.jpg 1800w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-1969x1969.jpg 1969w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Juri-Kermik-Moon_Cycle_Weave2023-copy-scaled.jpg 2560w" data-sizes="auto" width="2560" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jüri Kermik, <em>Moon Cycle Weave</em>, 2023</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">Ülo Sooster’s 100th anniversary exhibitions</h3><div class="location01"><p></p><p><em><strong>Ülo Sooster: Prison and Love</strong></em>, 8 March – 22 June, Estonian History Museum’s Great Guild Hall, Tallinn</p><p></p><p><em><strong>Sooster 100. View from Private Collections</strong></em>, Mikkel Museum</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Ülo Sooster (1924–1970), whose artistic career and life were cut short, left behind a legacy of thousands of drawings and paintings, which belong to the European surrealist heritage despite having been created on the other side of the Iron Curtain.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">There and Back: The Pilgrimages of Livonians in Medieval Europe</h3><div class="location02"><p>Niguliste Museum, Tallinn</p><p>9 March – 8 September</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The exhibition looks at pilgrimage in medieval Livonia (current day Estonia and Latvia) and the impact pilgrims had on destinations they visited both near and far.&nbsp; Their activities left various traces in the local material culture of the time: from the symbols used in art and on everyday items to the clothing worn by pilgrims and the souvenirs they brought back from their travels.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Homo Ludens. Ilmar Malin 100</h3><div class="location01"><p>Galerii Pallas, Tartu</p><p>8 July – 17 August</p></div><div class="description01"><p>Ilmar Malin (1924–1994) has been called the grand old man of Estonian surrealist art. This exhibition focuses on his portraits and figural compositions, next to which the movement towards surrealism is highlighted as a separate line. In addition to paintings, the exhibition includes drawings, printmaking, assemblages and monumental works.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Sõltumatu Tantsu Festival</h3><div class="location02"><p>Sõltumatu Tantsu Lava, Tallinn</p><p>26 September – 5 October</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The programme of the first ever Sõltumatu Tantsu Festival focuses on presenting the performances of international choreographers with a side programme of talks, workshops and dance events: Ukrainian Dance Platform, Modina dance and technology, and the Nordic Students Showcase.</p></div></div></div>



<p>Also see our guide to exhibitions, art events and experiences in Tartu and South Estonia.</p>



<h2 class="wp-block-heading"><strong>Beyond</strong></h2>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">15th Baltic Triennial</h3><div class="location01"><p>CAC, Vilnius</p><p>Opens on 6 September</p></div><div class="description01"><p>The 15th iteration of the Baltic Triennial, curated by Tom Engels and Maya Tounta will be exhibited at the soon-to-be-reopened Contemporary Art Centre in Vilnius.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Anu Põder: Space for My Body</h3><div class="location02"><p>Muzeum Susch, Susch</p><p>Until 30 June</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The first large-scale institutional retrospective dedicated to the multidisciplinary Estonian artist Anu Põder (1947–2013) outside her native country, bringing together more than forty works dating from 1978 to 2012. Anu Põder’s practice explores the human body, highlighting the fragility, impermanence, and ephemerality of life in a series of highly evocative sculptures. Curated by Cecilia Alemani</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">We Don’t Do This</h3><div class="location01"><p>Mo Museum, Vilnius</p><p>9 March – 1 September</p></div><div class="description01"><p>The exhibition <em>We Don’t Do This. Intimacy, Norms and Fantasies in Baltic Art</em> will presents works by both well-known and still under-acknowledged Lithuanian, Latvian and Estonian modern and contemporary artists, reflecting on corporeality, sexuality, a affection, attachment and vulnerability, capturing and recording the changing political and cultural identity of the Baltic States.</p></div></div><div><h3 class="title">Down the Rabbit Hole</h3><div class="location02"><p>MO Modern Art Museum</p><p>11 April – 3 November</p></div><div class="description02"><p>The exhibition delves into paganism, spirituality and conspiracy through diverse artworks by Baltic artists. The show suggests looking at paganism and spirituality as a romanticised historical refuge, pointing to its transformation during recent years, as it increasingly takes on conspiratorial elements dressed in corporate language. Curated by Justė Kostikovaitė, Maija Rudovska, Merilin Talumaa.</p></div></div></div>



<div class="event-info" class="wp-block-www-blocks-event-info-block"><div><h3 class="title">Breaking up of ice on a river</h3><div class="location01"><p>Margot Samel, NYC</p><p>17 May – 22 June</p></div><div class="description01"><p>An international group exhibition exploring traditions and future utopias. Curated by Lilian Hiob.</p></div></div><div><div class="location02"></div><div class="description02"></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/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-240x300.jpg 240w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-630x788.jpg 630w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-810x1013.jpg 810w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-900x1125.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-1080x1350.jpg 1080w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-1440x1800.jpg 1440w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-1575x1969.jpg 1575w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy2-scaled.jpg 2048w" data-sizes="auto" width="2048" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption1>Rita Lira, <em>The Trap</em> at MO Modern Art Museum,Vilnius. Photo by Mauricio Saldaña</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/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-scaled.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-240x300.jpg 240w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-819x1024.jpg 819w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-630x788.jpg 630w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-810x1013.jpg 810w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-900x1125.jpg 900w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-1080x1350.jpg 1080w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-1440x1800.jpg 1440w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-1575x1969.jpg 1575w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/Down-the-Rabbit-Hole-Caption-Darja-Popolitova-3D-Jewellery-Fortune-Telling-Photo-Carter-Seddon-copy-scaled.jpg 2048w" data-sizes="auto" width="2048" height="2560" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Down the Rabbit Hole, Darja Popolitova-<em>3D Jewellery Fortune Telling</em>. Photo by Carter Seddon</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>


Photo11_10-1 (dragged) copy

Your guide to Estonia and Beyond Spring and Summer 2024

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

The Many Faces of You

Editorial. The Many Faces of You

By Keiu Krikmann

The Many Faces of You

A mouth is more than a hole

By Johanna Hedva

Irony is not a productive tool, unless compassion and empathy are used alongside it – Interview with Edith Karlson

By Cecilia Alemani

Art and solidarity

By Kaarin Kivirähk

We deserve better, really – Interview with Tai Shani

By Lilian Hiob

The variations in the Baltic Drag scene

By Mētra Saberova

Bold and beautiful – Estonian private houses from the 1980s

By Triin Reidla

Discovering the Southern part of Estonia

By Kaarin Kivirähk

There has never been a time without art – Interview with Jevgeni Zolotko

By Anti Saar

Ülo Sooster between Identities, Artistic Methods, and Art Media

By Elnara Taidre

Your guide to Estonia and Beyond Spring and Summer 2024