Shifting Timelines kaas

Shifting Timelines


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


Keiu Krikmann


<p>Timelines are often used as tools for (re)arranging narratives about the past and equally so for creating future projections. Compiling a timeline also means including certain events, people and perspectives, and excluding others. Sometimes projected timelines become disrupted or broken due to historical and/or personal events – how do we refocus and re-evaluate to regain our bearings? Sometimes, shifting timelines can seem like an impossible task but focusing alternative and parallel timelines can also create new knowledge, contributing towards a new future.</p>



<p>Art historical timelines are tricky – artists and works are attached to and detached from the dominant timeline, be it due to the changing political, social or cultural circumstances. <strong>Eha Komissarov</strong>, a curator at the Art Museum of Estonia discusses the changes she has witnessed during her 50-year career and the successes and failures of contributing to shaping art historical timelines. This issue of A Shade Colder opens up works by the Estonian printmaker <strong>Concordia Klar</strong>, whose Surrealism influenced works are increasingly being highlighted again and for the first time ever, her poems have now been translated into English.</p>



<p>Alongside more powerful narratives, parallel and supplemental timelines always also run. Sometimes we only notice these in hindsight, at first finding tiny specs of them in-between oppression and oblivion. <strong>Mari Vallikivi</strong>’s and <strong>Thomas Röske</strong>’s research into art created by non-professional and mentally ill artists exposes a variety of factors contributing to the side-lining of these practices, while <strong>Brigit Arop</strong> highlights how small initiatives weave themselves into the institutionalised art world.</p>



<p>Massive political and social disruptions that tear up everything on their way force people to rethink familiar timelines once used to orient themselves towards a future – a future that will now never happen. A Shade Colder dives into how the work of various art professionals has been altered since Russia launched their full-scale war against Ukraine. <strong>Aro Velmet</strong> looks at the material consequences that often come with a shift in thinking – the differences between the monument wars in the East and the West.</p>



<p>On a path of uncertainty, we give alternative names to things that are unknown or too painful to speak of. We shift our thinking to another plane, a mythical timeline of metaphors and archetypes. <strong>Kaarin Kivirähk</strong> seeks out creatures born out of this imagination and traces their existence in the lesser-known border areas. The map of the monsters of Tallinn by <strong>Angela Maasalu</strong> and <strong>Jaak Juske</strong> lay outside historical, mythological and contemporary narratives that are deeply enmeshed in the psychological and physical space of the city.</p>



<p>In an effort to contribute to envisioning more hopeful and safe future timelines, A Shade Colder will continue donating 50% of the proceeds of our sales to the Ukrainian Emergency Art Fund.</p>



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


Final_illu veebi

Editorial. Shifting Timelines


<p><strong>Concordia Klar</strong> (1938–2004) was an Estonian printmaker. She graduated from the Estonian State Art Institute in 1963 and soon became interested in surrealist ideas. Klar’s visionary imagery often combines nature motifs and human figures – her series of women with musical instruments embodies harmony between the two. A lesser known fact is that Klar also wrote poetry and for this issue of A Shade Colder two of her poems from the 1970s have been translated to English for the first time.&nbsp;</p>


Concordia Klar

Translated by


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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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



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


Safe from the Snowdrift

Two Poems by Concordia Klar


<p><strong>Eda Tuulberg</strong> is an art historian based in Tallinn, Estonia. She is a curator at the Kumu Art Museum and doctoral student at the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her field of research is Soviet and contemporary art, with a focus on the work of women artists and the problematics of gender issues. She is currently working on a research and curatorial project exploring the legacy of late Soviet Estonian women printmakers.</p>


Eda Tuulberg


<p><strong>Maria Arusoo</strong> is an Estonian curator and dramaturg. She is interested in performative practices and socially engaged art. Since 2013, Arusoo has been working as the Director of the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art and the Commissioner of the Estonian Pavilion at the Venice Biennale. She is also part of the curatorial team for the 2023 Sequences real time art festival that takes place in Reykjavik.</p>


Maria Arusoo

Photography by

ehad_koos

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


<p><strong>Aro Velmet</strong> is a historian of twentieth century Europe at the University of Southern California and a visiting researcher at the University of Tartu. He is currently working on a book on the history of computing in the Soviet Union and independent Estonia. He is a co-curator of the permanent exhibit at the Vabamu museum in Tallinn, and author of a number of academic and journalistic articles on late Soviet history and French colonial history.</p>


Aro Velmet


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



<p>Western observers may have experienced the latest iteration of the monument wars in the Baltics with some cognitive dissonance. In the anglophone world, popular movements such as Black Lives Matter have demanded the decolonisation of public spaces. The British coloniser Cecil Rhodes, confederate general Robert E. Lee, even Theodore Roosevelt are no longer welcome in polite company. Owing to public pressure, universities have renamed buildings, and museums have been recontextualising their collections.&nbsp;</p>



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



<p>Monuments are also falling in the Baltics, spurred by the war in Ukraine and responding to Vladimir Putin’s propagandistic use of the past to justify his invasion. Last year, Latvian authorities dismantled a massive World War II memorial in the capital Riga, where ethnic Russians had been gathering every year on 9 May to commemorate the end of the war. In Estonia, the government removed a Soviet tank memorial from the border town of Narva, citing security concerns. All three Baltic countries have passed laws mandating the removal of Soviet war memorials, war graves and occupation-era symbols from buildings.</p>



<p>Yet these decisions have been met with strong public opposition, particularly from historians, art historians and conservators. If the removal of confederate and colonialist statues in the West has been interpreted as a democratisation of public space and an exorcism of the legacy of white supremacy, then in the Baltics, critics of the monument wars have called the dismantling of Soviet memorials undemocratic. By forming secret committees, working according to an accelerated schedule, and refusing to respond to critics, art historian Linda Kaljundi argues that Baltic governments are silencing public debate – “the worst approach, given the emotional intensity and polarising nature of the issue”. Instead she suggests cultivating a pedagogical approach to Soviet era monuments, to use them to “work through” difficult historical periods, and “to understand how different communities can and do have different interpretations of the past”.</p>



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



<p>Indeed, although the term “decolonisation” is also invoked here, the monument wars in the Baltics differ from their Western counterparts in several key respects. First, they are only the latest wave in a process that goes back to the 1990s. Statues of Lenin, Stalin, and local communist leaders might be found in Lithuania’s Grūto parkas or in Estonia’s Vabamu museum, but not on public squares because they were taken down in the early 1990s, when the Baltics regained their independence. The current wave of dismantling is therefore not oriented towards hot and controversial symbols of the occupation period, but towards smaller war memorials and graves that have often been forgotten, or architectural details, such as murals or hammer-and-sickle symbols on the facades of buildings such as Tallinn’s Sõprus cinema.</p>



<p>Second, the list of targeted monuments is much more extensive than in the US or the UK. In Estonia, a government study from 2022 listed a total of 322 Soviet monuments still remaining in the country and ruled that 244 of them should be removed. This included 133 war graves, which require reburials. For comparison, a Southern Poverty Law Center study from 2020 found that 168 Confederate symbols had been removed in the US with more than 2,100 remaining. In the Baltics, the loss of pedagogical potential in the built environment is a real danger, while in the US, the situation is quite the opposite: symbols with colonialist or white supremacist history tend to dominate public spaces, overwhelming an admittedly increasing number of monuments that celebrate Black and Indigenous culture.</p>



<p>Third, the role these remaining Soviet monuments play in the contemporary Baltic context is also quite different. We should recall that the movement to remove Confederate statues in the US did not spring from nowhere, rather, they were responding to an upsurge of white supremacist violence, notably the Charleston church shooting in 2015 and the Unite the Right rally of 2017. Indeed, as the American Historical Association noted in its statement at the time, most Confederate statues were never put up as memorials to the Civil War, but instead were erected decades later, at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth century, and were explicitly designed to intimidate Black Americans during the period of post-Reconstruction backlash.&nbsp;</p>



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



<p>The legacy of the remaining Soviet monuments is complicated in a different way. On the one hand, Putin’s regime is clearly using the narrative of the Great Patriotic War to drum up support for the war in Ukraine, an ‘anti-fascist’ operation, as Russia would have it. On the other hand, many of the monuments in question are active as war memorials for the Russian minority population, who gather there to commemorate fallen family members, celebrate the end of the war on 9 May, or take pictures during family events, such as weddings.&nbsp;</p>



<p>Critics have pointed out that machines of destruction in public spaces create unsavoury associations in an era of Russian aggression. Yet, using tanks as war memorials, as was the case in Narva, is by no means an uncommon practice. Memorials of British Churchill and US Sherman tanks are found all over the coastline of Normandy, and Soviet tank memorials are not uncommon (nor uncontroversial) in East Germany or Poland. Other memorials are complicated by the fact that they have been designed by local architects and sculptors, and have, over time, lost their association with the Soviet period. The expansive complex at Maarjamäe in Tallinn, for instance, is more likely to be identified as one location used for shooting the film <em>Tenet</em> than a Soviet memorial to World War II. In any case, the memory politics of the Baltic memorials resist a single interpretation.</p>



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



<p>Finally, while the removal of statues of Soviet leaders in 1991 enjoyed broad popular support, it is not clear that there is a large constituency that is actively bothered by the remaining monuments today. Indeed, public opinion polls show either indifference or support for the monuments. In Estonia, 43% of Estonian speaking respondents said that Soviet era monuments “had no meaning for them”, while 16% said they evoke “negative feelings and memories”. Often, local communities have voiced support for the monuments. The removal of the T-34 tank in the predominantly Russian-speaking town of Narva was accompanied by peaceful gatherings. A Soviet war memorial, Kivi-Jüri, in the Estonian island town of Kärdla, was taken to a military museum, even as local leaders called for caution and debate.</p>



<p>By and large, the campaign to remove Soviet symbols has been led by conservative politicians, who are not unfairly accused of drumming up nationalism in advance of the election season. Rather than being powered by grassroots initiatives, like the anticolonial and antislavery campaigns in the US and the UK, the monument removals in the Baltics are organised by the central government, often cloaked in secrecy. In Estonia, the list of Soviet monuments to be dismantled was drawn up by a secret committee, and the government was given the right, in spite of protests by various professional societies, to overrule the decisions of local municipalities and heritage boards.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The removals are now underway, having drawn more attention to the monuments than if they had been simply left alone. The monument wars have been discussed at academic conferences and on TV talk shows, and have certainly offered many ‘pedagogical opportunities’ for discussing the intersection of politics, memory and history. It remains to be seen if the loss of material heritage has been worth the payoff.</p>


TonuTunnel.com_Maarjamäe_3

A Strange Decolonisation – Monument Wars in the Baltics


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


Kaarin Kivirähk

Zhanna2 100 hele

Timelines in Transit. Where Do We Go from Here?


<p><strong>Jaak Juske</strong> is a teacher and populariser of history based in Tallinn. He has written over 30 books, mainly on the history of Estonian cities.</p>


Jaak Juske


<p><strong>Angela Maasalu </strong>is a visual artist living and working in London, UK.</p>


Angela Maasalu


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



<p>Angela Maasalu and Jaak Juske take us on a fantastical tour of the monsters of Tallinn, weaving together folk tales and stories about political and historical events.</p>



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



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



<p>In 2022, the Tallinn Town Hall celebrated the 700th anniversary since it was first mentioned. The facade of the building is decorated with the heads of two green dragons – two spectacular metal gargoyles. But there is another one – Kolmas Draakon, or the Third Dragon, is the name given to the Town Hall tavern. Dragons can be found elsewhere in the Old Town too, mainly as weathervanes decorating Medieval buildings. Additionally, we can see dragons with magnificent wings on the facade of the Art Nouveau style building at 18 Pikk Street, completed in 1910, now home to Draakoni art gallery.</p>



<p>But beware, in the Old Town more monstrosities can be found – just across the street from Draakoni Gallery sits the Embassy of the Russian Federation. In response to the brutal war Russia has launched against Ukraine, the Estonian parliament declared the current Russian regime terrorist and locals have covered the security fence in front of the building with images of the horrors committed in Ukraine.</p>



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



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



<p>The Tallinn Old Town is abundant with ghost stories with new ones constantly appearing. One such story is tied to an old merchant house at 16 Rataskaevu Street.&nbsp;</p>



<p>According to the legend, a long time ago, the owner of that house had foolishly burnt through his riches and was becoming desperate. One night his despair had reached such depths that he decided to end his life. And precisely at that moment, a stranger stepped into the room and asked the moneyless master of the house to hold a lavish party on the upper floor of the house the following night. In return, the stranger promised him unimaginable riches but only on the condition that there were no witnesses to the celebration, whoever does so, will face death. The owner of the house agreed.</p>



<p>The following evening, just as agreed, carriages arrived in front of the house, the upper floor windows were lit and the stairs could be heard creaking, exactly as it would under the feet of hordes of people. Beautiful music could be heard from the hall and the whole house rumbled as if a large crowd of people was dancing there. As soon as the clock struck one, the ghostly party vanished. It was said that the owner of the house must have been compensated generously, as already the next morning he continued living even more lavishly than before.</p>



<p>Around the same time, his valet de chambre unexpectedly died. Before drawing his last breath, he had told the priest that he had secretly witnessed the devil&#8217;s wedding. And so we know that, at least once, the devil has held a party in Tallinn.</p>



<p>On the facade of the same house, behind the leftmost window of the second floor we can see&nbsp; a wall. From the outside, it looks as if curtains have been drawn but, in fact, these are painted on the wall behind the window. According to the legend, the master of the house had permanently closed the door to the room and in order to hide the unused room, he had a curtain painted on the walled-up window.</p>



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



<p>There are also numerous places related to monsters outside the Old Town. Tallinn is divided into eight municipalities and 84 districts. Among these districts are Tondi and Tondiraba, roughly translating into English as &#8220;phantom&#8221; and &#8220;phantom bog&#8221; districts. However, the Tondi district located in Kristiine municipality got its name not because of notable sightings of phantoms but after a former landowner and nobleman named Dunte. The Tondiraba district in the Lasnamäe municipality might actually have been such a ghostly place that the bog did, in fact, become known for supposed supernatural phenomena among the local people. By the way, in 1983 traces of meteorite impact were discovered in the limestone found in the area. Most likely, a heavenly monster struck the Tondiraba area around 20,000–25,000 BC.</p>



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



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



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



<p>There is another statue of a monster in the park of Glehn Castle in the municipality of Nõmme – a concrete sculpture depicting a dragon. The sculpture was created in 1908 on the initiative of local nobleman Nikolai von Glehn. Glehn wanted to create a scene from Estonian mythology, where Kalevipoeg, the hero of the national epic, is stalked by a monster. However, owing to visual similarity, local people started calling the monster a crocodile.</p>



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



<p>Sites with a bloody history can be equally monstrous. And there are numerous such examples in Tallinn. In the Kalarand district we find the massive Patarei Sea Fortress complex, built in the first half of the 19th century as a prison that was feared for many many years. In the early years of the Soviet occupation, just after the Second World War, several thousands of people were imprisoned there in horrid conditions. Today, the former cells and execution room can be visited as exhibits.</p>



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



<p>In the Old Town, on the corner of Pikk Street and Pagari Street, the KGB museum is open in the basement of the building – this is yet another site where people were tortured during the Soviet period. Now more than ever, difficult history must not be forgotten.&nbsp;&nbsp;</p>



<p>In the primeval valley of the Pirita river in Tallinn, the buildings of the abandoned Kose manor are being devoured by time. In 1942, when the occupying German army decided to use the servants&#8217; house of Kose manor for their operations, a problem occurred – their horses became restless inside the building. To investigate, the newly poured concrete floor was removed and a horrific discovery was made: a year before the German occupation began in Estonia, the NKVD had executed 25 people and covered their bodies in concrete to hide the crime. Elsewhere around the manor, mass graves with the remains of at least 53 people were also found. Although the NKVD’s preferred style of execution was a shot in the back of the head, these people had been buried alive. The exact number of bodies found in the grounds of Kose manor and the identities of the people still remain unclear.</p>



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


Angela_koletiste_kaart copy

Mapping Monsters


<p></p>



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



<p>In recent years we can notice an ongoing fascination among contemporary artists with different creatures: human-animal hybrids, monsters, animals. Something definitely seems to be in the air, even if we start from the more obvious examples, such as the 59th International Art Exhibition in Venice titled <em>The Milk of Dreams</em> and curated by Cecilia Alemani, where the depiction of non-human forms varied from surrealist images to mythological beings and futuristic forms. However, here I would like to look at the region of the Eastern shore of the Baltic Sea and the works of two Estonian and one Polish artist to see how these artists have been depicting non-human creatures. How are they linked to historical visual culture or to contemporary ideas of the coexistence of species? And most importantly, what is their relationship to <em>the Other</em>, whether the fantastical creatures of faraway lands or hybrid visions of the future?</p>



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



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



<p>Things might often seem blurry and hard to grasp when looking from the distance and with limited knowledge. In medieval and early modern Europe, knowledge about the area of modern day Estonia and the surrounding countries was relatively vague, based often on antique or medieval descriptions. Until the 17th century, maps depicting the territory of Estonia as we know it today were usually drawn somewhere else – mostly in Western or Southern Europe and full of misconceptions. This is probably the reason why at the end of 11th century, the German clergyman Adam of Bremen described Estonia as an island by the name of Aestland, where people ”worship dragons and birds to whom they sacrifice people.” Eight centuries later, in 1854, the German traveller Johann von Hahn described different types of <em>human tails</em> found in Albania, another remote outpost of Europe. The belief that monstrous races and fantastic creatures lived on the edges of the known world was rather widespread from medieval times to the modern period and creatures and phenomena we now know how to explain, were often considered fantastical. For example, the famous 13th century traveller Marco Polo described a unicorn, however, we can now almost certainly claim the creature he saw was a rhinoceros.</p>



<p>It would be easy to feel superior to the ancient travellers who witnessed fantastical creatures (including humans-hybrids) in faraway lands, such as Estonia or Albania. However, as the example of Marco Polo demonstrates, sometimes the fantastical creatures were, in fact, physically very real. At the same time, magical qualities were often attributed to known animals, such as dogs, lions or horses. In this sense, all <em>known</em> animals could also be considered magical or fantastical creatures. Anu Mänd, professor of art history at Tartu University writes about the depiction of animals and other creatures in medieval Livonia (the historical name of territory on present day Estonia and Latvia), where the images of non-human creatures had religious and allegorical meaning. The hybrid creature of a snake with a woman’s head, symbolising Satan, on the stone craving in Rauna church in Latvia tells the Christian story of original sin. The two lions in Padise monastery in northern Estonia were meant to be read as an allegory for the ongoing fight between virtue and evil.</p>



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



<p>Tallinn-based artist Edith Karlson has been working with the figures of animals, creatures and hybrid forms from the very beginning of her artistic career. Some of her works, such as <em>Vox Populi </em>(2016), an impressive installation of animal heads, connected with a chain of rabbit poop, evoke Christian iconography. Here, the animals represent human existence, a bit like contemporary <em>memento mori</em>, although the reminder of death is replaced by the reminder of human stupidity and absurdity. However, one could also draw parallels between Karlson’s world of weird creatures and strange animals with pre-Christian Estonian mythology. Estonia was Christianised in the 13th century, but many pagan beliefs have since existed alongside or merged with Christian tradition. Spirits and even diabolical creatures were living alongside people, sometimes they could be tricked by humans and deals could be made with them. Similarly, Edith Karlson has placed a huge dinosaur in the public urban space in Tallinn (<em>Good Old Times</em>, 2021) or brought ghostly human figures to a busy art fair, with snakes inside their bodies (<em>Good, Bad, Ugly</em>, 2021, made for Art Basel). Life alongside various supernatural creatures is not something overly romantic, neither is it horrible but rather mundane, a practical business with diabolical beings.</p>



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



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



<p>Finding ways to exist alongside other species was not an uncommon topic even in the Christian medieval world: Anu Mänd describes how the Christian stories of saints preached cooperation between animals and humans. For example, Saint Jerome, depicted on the famous high altar retable in Niguliste church in Tallinn, is part of the well-known story where the saint healed a lion, after which the lion lived with him and other monks as their pet. However, these stories not only preached kindness towards animals but also often fixed the status of humans as superior to animals and enforced an attitude, where the role of the animal was to serve humans.</p>



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



<p>Contemporary post-humanism tries to overcome this notion of human superiority. Polish artist Wiktoria Walendzik creates uncanny, sensual compositions of humans and other creatures. A dark monstruous octopus sits in a bath covered in seashells, together with a human figure or, in another work, a giant horse swallows a tiny human, and in yet another, a female character sits on top of a pine-man. Her works flicker on the edge of erotica but also show the potential for empathy with the unknown. In the catalogue for the 59th International Art Exhibition <em>The Milk of Dreams</em>, Rosi Braidotti writes about the importance of including feminist thought in post-humanist theory: ”A sort of intergalactic Alliance of feminists and LGBTQ+ with aliens and monsters lies at the heart of the science fiction horror genre […]. It supports the composition of an assemblage between women and LGBTQ+ as the others of <em>Man</em> and the other <em>others</em> in the form of non-whites […], non-anthropomorphic organisms […] and so forth.” It brings forward possible alternative views of the world and shows empathy and compassion which goes further from human-centred thinking. Estonian artist Kadri-Liis Rääk has worked with possible visions of futuristic life forms. Rather than cold and machine-like, her works show these creatures as soft and touchable. At her exhibition <em>Xarcadia</em> in 2022 (Hiob Gallery, Tallinn) she furnished a possible home for a nameless creature in the future. The artist writes: ”An empathic creature, reliant and dependent on its surroundings is born, synthesising impulses from a lost world.”</p>



<p>In this way, imagining non-human creatures inhabiting the unknown territory of the future, is in some way similar to the medieval travellers who were describing unknown lands and the creatures they either found or imagined living there. Although the distance of the travellers was only limited by space, not time, the level of mystery was probably similar to today’s interpretations of the future. The difference might be, however, that these new imaginations could also include empathy towards the weird creatures inhabiting the faraway future, and not only cultivate fear and misunderstanding.</p>



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


13 Xarcadia, exhibition view, 2022, photo Roman-Sten Tõnissoo VEEBI

Unknown Creatures of Faraway Lands


<p><strong>Brigit Arop</strong> is a freelance curator based in Tallinn, Estonia. Among other things she is co-running the Infinite Life Gallery and the self-organised dumpster diving group Üle Prahi collective.</p>


Brigit Arop

Copy of GolfClayderman, Star Parade at 427, 2020. Photo: Elīna Vītola

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


<p><strong>Mari Vallikivi</strong> is an art historian based in Viljandi, Estonia. She has worked as the director of the Kondas Centre art museum since 2003. Estonian outsider art has been her research focus over the last 15 years.</p>


Mari Vallikivi


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



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



<p>Outsider art or <em>art brut</em> in Estonia has not been researched much until recent years. As an object of research, outsider art is closely linked to developments in the fields of psychiatry and special care services and in the wider society – in Estonia, attitudes towards people with psychological special needs (mental disability, psychiatric diagnoses) have only recently started changing for the better. We have very little knowledge about older, that is, historical art created by people with special mental health needs, and we know almost nothing about such artworks made between 1920 and 1990. In the current state of research, we lack facts, so we can only make educated guesses when it comes to outsider art from the past. Estonian psychiatric hospitals, such as the clinic in Tartu (established in 1877), Jämejala near Viljandi (1897), Seewald in Tallinn (1903) and Pilguse in Saaremaa (1913), all simultaneously functioned both as medical institutions and care facilities until World War II. According to the Central Bureau of the Republic of Estonia in 1929, care was provided to around 3,000 mentally ill people. During the Soviet occupation, people with special mental health needs were increasingly institutionalised and the number of both people in special care and the number of care homes (or as they were called at the time, homes for invalids) increased. The political agenda of Soviet period care facilities was tied to ideas of re-education through labour (for people for whom such an approach was applicable)<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1817"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1817-1">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1817-1" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">The duty to work in accordance with ability was applied to people in institutional care before the Soviet period as well.</span>. Recreation and leisure were not prioritised, although cinema and literature as art forms that could be submitted to ideological control in closed facilities were preferred as entertainment. Painting and drawing were not priorities, although there were people who did draw. It can definitely be said that valuable works that were created despite everything in care facilities and psychiatric hospitals during the Soviet period have been lost or destroyed because preserving these was not considered important.</p>



<p>After the Soviet occupation, especially from the 2000s onwards, social services were restructured and since then, one of the main objectives in special care has been deinstitutionalisation.</p>



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



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



<p>In 2003, I started working as the director of the Kondas Centre, an art museum that had just opened in Viljandi. The permanent exhibition presents the works of the naïve painter Paul Kondas (1900–1985), a school teacher from Viljandi and Suure-Jaani. As he was also a self-taught artist, the centre&#8217;s mission is to research and introduce phenomena that often remain outside the established art world, such as self-taught and naïve artists and Sunday painters. A year after the museum was opened, I started going on research trips around Estonia to find artists who had a high drive to create art but modest knowledge and skill compared to professionals. Many of the original artists I met during the fieldwork between 2004 and 2008, were already elderly, and by now, almost all of them have left this world. Interviewing them, I found that these artists had mostly held simple jobs, lived in small towns and villages away from large centres and had had extremely limited contact with professional cultural fields. After a more active period of researching the legacy of naïve artists, my focus shifted towards art created by people with special mental health needs. The first exhibitions of works by artists in need of additional support<sub><sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1817"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1817-2">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1817-2" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">In the Estonian context, the expression &#8220;supported artist&#8221; is tentative and somewhat misleading, since the care system generally lacks professional instructors.</span></sub> were shown in the museum already in 2004 and 2005.<em> </em>Before 2018 <em>art brut</em> was not exhibited in a systematic way at the Kondas centre; however, 2017 could now be considered a turning point as a new funding opportunity became available in connection to the centenary of the Republic of Estonia. In 2018, Estonia celebrated 100 years since it gained independence and among other programmes, the state offered additional arts funding as part of their One Hundred Art Landscapes programme. The Kondas Centre applied with the idea of holding the first ever exhibition of artists in need of additional support from all over the country. In 2003, the art historian Sigrid Saarep had organised a landmark event – the first international conference of outsider art and the exhibition <em>Offending the Medusa</em>. In the exhibitions displayed at various locations in Tallinn, works created at the Tallinn Support Center Juks were exhibited alongside self-taught artists. It can be said that Juks is more or less the only institution within the Estonian special care system employing professional art teachers. After <em>Offending the Medusa</em>, no systematic research into outsider art was done until 2017.</p>



<p>The first challenge we faced when starting the project as part of the One Hundred Art Landscapes programme was to find information about artists and how to reach them both in institutions and homes. How many could there even be in Estonia? We had many questions and not so many answers.</p>



<p>According to studies, there are up to 55,000 people with special mental health needs living in Estonia. That is as many as there are inhabitants in Narva, the third-largest city in Estonia. About 11,000 people receive either permanent or temporary care services, but in offering creative services to people in special care, we are lagging behind Western Europe by 20 to 30 years.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block alignright"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1-300x212.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Juri_Karpov_Abstraction-I_Kondas-Centre-Collection-1.jpg 1000w" data-sizes="auto" width="1000" height="707" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Jüri Karpov, Abstraction I, 2017. Kondas Centre Collection</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



<p>As a first step, I turned to the list of special care facilities provided on the web page of the Social Insurance Board and began visiting these. Although these institutions are not generally very open, buzzwords like the &#8220;centenary art programme&#8221; and &#8220;art exhibition&#8221; opened doors to many support and day care centres. These visits allowed us to meet people creating art in the facilities, as well as the conditions and opportunities for crafting and making art on site but more broadly also how the system of special care operates. Sometimes differences of opinion appeared and it became clear we had a different understanding of what art is – in the facilities the personnel rarely thought that the people who live there make ‘art’, but rather they ‘draw things’. I witnessed how artworks made during the day were binned in the evening because &#8220;they will make new ones&#8221; the following day. Notably, weaving looms were present in almost all of the facilities – as a relic of the Soviet period attitude that the patents need to work, I assume – but high-quality paper, pencils and paint were much harder to find.</p>



<p>Before spring 2020, when care facilities were almost entirely closed due to the pandemic, I managed to visit around 25 special care facilities across the country – from Võru to Saaremaa and Pärnu to Narva. By early 2023, the Kondas centre had bought over 500 artworks thanks to the support of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and collected valuable material, interviewed artists as well as activities supervisors. The primary criterium for purchase was the level of artistry and in some cases, the remarkable story behind the piece.</p>



<div class="wp-block-www-blocks-image-block aligncenter"><figure class="is-zoomable"><img data-src="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST.jpg" data-srcset="https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST-150x150.jpg 150w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST-300x261.jpg 300w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST-905x788.jpg 905w, https://admin.ashadecolder.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/Copy-of-Lembar_Linder-United-States-of-EST.jpg 933w" data-sizes="auto" width="933" height="812" alt="" class="lazyload"/><figcaption>Lembar Linder, United States of EST, 2003. Kondas Centre Collection</figcaption><button class="zoom m-image" aria-label="View fullscreen"></button></figure></div>



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



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



<p>On several occasions, these trips made me wonder about the source of creativity. For example, sometimes art is the only means of communication with the world, as was the case with Ingrid, a woman whose colourful images of communication are now part of the Kondas collection. Ingrid (b. 1952) is deaf and mute and lives in a care home in Sillamäe in Ida-Viru County, located in a hospital complex in the former closed Soviet city. Ingrid is mentally disabled and nobody ever taught her sign language, yet she started using drawing to communicate: whenever she needs something or has run out of something – hand cream, toilet paper, soap, clean clothes – she draws it on paper and brings it to a carer at her facility. Thanks to a volunteer from Sweden who worked at the care home years ago, Ingrid has been provided with high quality art supplies. In her case, making art is not just a practical need but also a way to express thoughts and feelings. An attentive observer, she depicts events around her; often she seems to mentally divide the surface of the paper in two, depicting two seemingly unrelated themes. Ingrid relieves stress and tension by drawing colourful squares in her notebook.</p>



<p>Jüri (b. 1971) lives in the largest special care home in south Estonia, in the city of Võru, where he was relocated as an adult after his mother died. He graduated from the Urvaste special-needs school but after coming to the care home, he stopped communicating. It took a long time before he began drawing with others in the activities room. Increasingly, his semi-abstract works began including dates and a few words. When he was asked something, he wrote the reply on paper; sometimes he would secretly hide scissors in his pocket and would cut up his shoes, unscrew skirting boards, or even his entire bed. When Jüri saw his works in the Kondas centre in 2018, he suddenly became extremely social, began speaking and once, disappeared in the city of Võru for two days. After this incident, his treatment was altered. In recent years, he does not draw as often and most of his works are black and white.</p>



<p>Based on these two brief examples, we can see that creating art is a tool for people who need additional support to better perceive and analyse the world around them, but it also provides others with the opportunity to understand their inner world.</p>



<p>Making talented creators visible and recognising their work helps people who need additional support to gain better conditions for making art and help society understand that different people should be met on equal grounds, which, in turn, helps create more cohesion in society in general.</p>


Copy of Ingrid_Kivimeister_Töö_ja_puhkus

The Bumpy Road of Estonian Outsider Art


<p><strong>Thomas Röske</strong> has been head of the Prinzhorn Collection of the Psychiatric University Clinic in Heidelberg since 2002. He studied the history of art, musicology and psychology at Hamburg University and obtained his doctorate in 1991 with a book about Hans Prinzhorn. He now teaches art history alternately at Frankfurt University and at Heidelberg University. He has published mainly on German Modernism and Outsider Art. Since 2012, he has been the president of the European Outsider Art Association.</p>


Thomas Röske


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



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



<p>One of the largest collections of art works by psychiatric patients created before the emergence of contemporary psychopharmacology is located at the Prinzhorn Collection in Heidelberg. The museum housing this collection is located in the building of the old clinic (<em>Altklinikum Bergheim</em>) at Heidelberg University.</p>



<p>Among the first who started looking more closely at the creative works of mentally ill people was Emil Kraepelin (1856–1926), the founder of scientific psychiatry and the founder of the experimental psychology laboratory at the University of Tartu. He worked at Heidelberg University from 1891 to 1903 and before that also in Tartu, Estonia (1886–1891). In 1887, he became a professor of psychiatry and the head of the University of Tartu psychiatric hospital, but due to the language barrier, the daily work with patients turned out to be &#8220;extremely troublesome&#8221;&nbsp;<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="1" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-1">1</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-1" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="1">Allik, J. 2022. <em>Eesti psühholoogia lugu</em>. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 66.</span>, as Kraepelin writes in his memoirs. The majority of the patients at the hospital were Estonians but there were also Germans, Latvians, Russians, Finns and Jewish and Polish people but the professor struggled to find a common language and due to the pressure of the Russification<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="2" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-2">2</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-2" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="2">In the second half of the 19th century, the Russian Empire, which Estonia was part of at the time, led a policy of supressing the right of self-determination and autonomy of ethnic minorities.</span> policy, in 1891, he returned to Germany. In Tartu, Kraepelin developed the nosological classification of mental illnesses, with two of the most significant groups of illnesses being maniacal depressive illnesses and <em>dementia praecox</em> (contemporary term: schizophrenia).<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="3" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-3">3</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-3" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="3">Allik, J. 2022. <em>Eesti psühholoogia lugu</em>. Tartu: Tartu Ülikooli Kirjastus, 68</span> During his time there, the conditions for patients in the facility were also improved. It is highly likely that it was then that medical professionals started collecting materials, such as writings, scribbles and drawings, as part of patients’ medical records for the first time in Tartu. This was all seen as part of their case history that contributed to their diagnosis.&nbsp;</p>



<p>There are not many works in the Prinzhorn collection from the period Kraepelin worked at Heidelberg but among them, for example, is a handkerchief embroidered by Jane Grier (1856–1902) that will also be displayed at the exhibition <em>If you could understand something from the dreams you had?</em> at Tartu Art Museum (17 June – 15 October 2023). Kraepelin also used patients&#8217; artworks as teaching materials; for example, in 1896, he “sought to demonstrate the ‘degenerate’ in symbolism with patient drawings”, and during diagnostics exercises, he combined art by patients with mental illnesses with reproductions of modern art.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="4" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-4">4</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-4" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="4">Brand-Claussen, B. 2021. Between Respect and Ostracism<em>. The History of a Crazy Collection, Introduction to the Prinzhorn Collection</em>, 6</span></p>



<p>Years later, Kraepelin&#8217;s former assistant and the head of the Heidelberg University psychiatric hospital Karl Wilmanns (1873–1945), together with Hans Prinzhorn (1886–1933), who had studied both medicine and art history and started working at the clinic as an assistant in 1919, began expanding the collection of patients&#8217; art for research purposes in the same year. Wilmanns and Prinzhorn wrote to asylums and private clinics of German-speaking countries to ask for drawings, paintings, sculptures and scribbles expressing the patients&#8217; psychosis to be sent to their facility in Heidelberg. Their request did not go unanswered and the collection in Heidelberg received nearly 5,000 new works. In 1922, Hanz Prinzhorn published a book titled <em>Artistry of the Mentally Ill</em> (<em>Bildnerei der Geisteskranken</em>), in which he stated that artworks of mentally ill people &#8220;resemble art&#8221; and are thus not merely support material in establishing a fitting diagnosis.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="5" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-5">5</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-5" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="5">Outsider Art Now, 2017. Outsider Art Museum, 48</span> The book was less influential in the field of psychiatry but still carries significance in the field of art. It had a considerable impact on both the Expressionists and the Surrealists. Alongside Expressionist art, a few works from the Prinzhorn collection were also displayed at the Degenerate Art (Entartete Kunst) travelling exhibition in Nazi Germany from 1937 to 1942. Kraepelin died in 1926 before the Third Reich was established; however, he believed that &#8220;a policy of reasonable racial hygiene&#8221; (<em>verstandige rassenhygiene</em>) could provide a solution to issues related to ‘degeneration’ in Germany, referring to the view that certain cultural influences contribute to the downfall and weakening of a race.<sup class="modern-footnotes-footnote " data-mfn="6" data-mfn-post-scope="00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749"><a href="javascript:void(0)"  role="button" aria-pressed="false" aria-describedby="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-6">6</a></sup><span id="mfn-content-00000000000003a20000000000000000_1749-6" role="tooltip" class="modern-footnotes-footnote__note" tabindex="0" data-mfn="6"><a href="https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.15111414">Rael D. Strous</a> etc, 2016. Reflections on Emil Kraepelin: Icon and Reality. <em>The American Journal of Psychiatry</em>. 173 (3), 300-301 </span>He was convinced that society must protect itself from mentally ill people, just like it should from those with contagious illnesses and many of his attitudes were later echoed in his students, several of whom became prominent Nazi psychiatrists. Yet, despite Nazi policies on ‘degenerate’ art, the collection remained nearly untouched and was preserved in a cupboard in the archive of the Heidelberg psychiatric clinic.&nbsp;</p>



<p>The exhibition at the Tartu Art Museum looks at a ground-breaking era in the histories of both psychiatry and art and makes visible the links between Tartu and Heidelberg. Alongside works from the Prinzhorn Collection, the exhibition displays works by psychiatric patients from early 20th century Tartu.</p>



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



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



<p>The impressive embroidered handkerchief, dated 1897, is the only surviving work by Jane Grier (1856–1902). It was illustrated on a colour plate by the psychiatrist Emil Kraepelin in his important psychiatric textbook of 1913 as an &#8220;example of the peculiar works of art&#8221; by people diagnosed with <em>dementia praecox</em> (later <em>schizophrenia</em>). For his diagnostic view, accordingly, only the “loss of taste in screaming color combinations and strange shapes” asserted itself in the textile.</p>



<p>The unmarried governess and lady’s companion Grier, born in Ireland as the daughter of a ship&#8217;s doctor, was living with her mother and sister in Dresden-Neustadt in 1892 when she felt watched and became increasingly agitated. Because she laughed often for no reason, dressed conspicuously, and behaved <em>indecently</em>, her mother sent her to the city&#8217;s mental hospital for two months. Further stays here, and at the Pirna institution followed. Grier died in Dresden hospital at the age of 46.Her embroidery on a men&#8217;s handkerchief reveals little structure at first glance. Grier initially stitched messages to assistant doctor Willführ in Dresden in four of the corner cartouches for him to remember her. The rest of the needlework, however, is unevenly spread over the handkerchief, loops of whole bundles of yarn are sewn onto some sections, others are not designed. But for the most part, the yarn was not placed haphazardly. Grier used a bundle of threads to frame one of the cartouches. With another, she apparently wanted to design an even more lavish decoration. The loops of different coloured yarn bundles used for this are not symmetrical, but they do form an equally weighted, <em>Baroque</em> whole. Only after this decoration does the embroidery thread seem to have taken on a life of its own, with at least the heart shape on the edge of the cloth probably being intentionally pictorial. In increasing the adornment around her plea not to forget her, the embroiderer, perhaps emotionally overwhelmed, lost control of the composition.</p>



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


SONY DSC

Piecing together a lost history & Forget Me Not


<p><strong>Marika Agu</strong> is currently working as curator and archivist at the Estonian Centre for Contemporary Art. She has cultivated projects from a range of topics, such as archives, material culture and writing within contemporary art context.</p>


Marika Agu


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<p>In conversation between Marika Agu and DJ Dodomundo, podcast Majickk Sounds touches upon the question what happens when an art gallery shapeshifts into a dance club, but also the effects that sound has on the body and mind. Check out one of her mixes on <a href="https://radiovilnius.live/5033-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Radio Vilnius</a>. </p>



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


MSound-ep2

Majickk sound. A conversation with Dodomundo

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

Your Guide to Estonia and Beyond 2023

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<p>In conversation between Marika Agu and DJ Dodomundo, podcast Majickk Sounds touches upon the question what happens when an art gallery shapeshifts into a dance club, but also the effects that sound has on the body and mind. Check out one of her mixes on <a href="https://radiovilnius.live/5033-2/" target="_blank" rel="noreferrer noopener">Radio Vilnius</a>. </p>

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

A Shade Colder

The Many Faces of You

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