INSULA NUDUS: Paljassaare beyond interesting

“INSULA NUDUS: Paljassaare beyond interesting” is a public exhibition and a final grading of Estonian Academy of Arts Urban Studies Urbanisation studio, tutored by Andra Aaloe and Keiti Kljavin.

You are interesting, paljassaare is interesting, everything there is so interesting – it’s romantic, it’s so natural, it’s also hip and so unexplored and under cover; it takes you to the wild side, it takes you to a free and wild space; wow, it’s just so interesting! It’s full of opportunities and potential, so interesting!

“Interesting” seems to be a widely shared, dominating quality when it comes to the Paljassaare peninsula. Nature, wilderness, tranquility, decay, an escape – and all of this located in the capital city itself. But what actually constitutes this “interesting”? What lies beyond that?

On Saturday (12 Dec 2020) starting from 11am everyone is welcome to visit six different individual exhibits located all around the peninsula. You are welcome to explore them in your preferred order and with your individually chosen means of transport, but do mark that sites are open on different time slots (see the programme below).

All the sites are marked here: https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit….

Everyone is welcome to gather around the finissage-bonfire of the event at 4pm next to the  (at the meadow next to the tower with a bird mural on the facade: https://goo.gl/maps/cH6Ve3uZhxpU8uif9).

Be prepared for frosty temperatures, bring along some snacks, drinks and everything you need for a lengthy, wintery expedition in the bushes. Refreshments will also be served at some of the locations to keep you going, so don’t forget to bring a mug.

The mini-festival of Paljassaare is put together by Janosh Heydorn, Daria Khrystych, Dalma Pszota, Mira Samonig, Karlotta Sperling and Fernanda Torres.

And we thank you for the help along the way: Flo Kasearu, Abraham Kenny, Simona Medolago, Maros Krivy, Muhammad Ali Ul Hussnain, Lera Mikhailova, Andres Ojari, Panu Lehtovuori, Kille Alterman, Yuriy, Sergey, Natalia, Aleksey.

PROGRAMME

NB! Find the exact locations here:
https://www.google.com/maps/d/u/0/edit….

11.00–13.00 (Paagi 8) // Right to the social retreat / participatory intervention by Daria Khrystych
What is social about social services and social housing? Official social welfare network is supposed to grant people with financial or social problems a way to still remain in society through assistance and support. In the perception of “functional” members of society, it is a fringe, an edge of the society in large that the “clients” of these facilities are pushed to. But what happens if we’d turn it over and look at the social house as a social retreat, something that we all need from time to time? The participatory intervention “Right to the social retreat” is an attempt to bring the edge (Paljassaare and its “social village”) to be the new and needed centre of the city by broadening the general perceptions of the “social services”.

11.30–13.00 (recycling yard area at Paljassaare tee 17) // “We should do something here!” Vol. 1 / audio adventure by Karlotta Sperling
Change is ahead and the future of Paljassaare seems to be mapped out and already fixed in a seemingly endless number of high-polished detail plans and real estate fantasies. But how does culture influence the anticipated change and what do I have to do with it? And finally, can a plan predict the future?

13.30–15.00 (entrance to the Paljassaare tee 40 area) // “We should do something here!” Vol. 2 / audio adventure by Karlotta Sperling
The series of “We should do something here” continues! Same topic, different location! Adventure is on!

12.00–14.00 (on top of Kopli hill at Maleva 4) // ARCO-BAY/ECO-SANTI: 50 years of eco-cities / audio walk by Fernanda Ayala Torres

Cities are not designed in coherence with nature, as potential places for human cohabitation with other organisms, because originally the city was to free humans from the contingency and wilderness of nature. But now, in the urbanised world and in the face of the pending climate crisis, the way we’re relegated to live in millions of little cubes separated only by roads and parking lots and cars makes us rethink the way we live and consume. From here the ambiguous and ambitious idea of an “eco-city” appears, this 50 years old concept, which aims to integrate the urban into ecology or/and vice versa. The audio walk “ARCO-BAY/ECO-SANTI: 50 years of eco-cities” is questioning the future paper-development of Ecobay in Paljassaare by drawing comparisons to another very different realisation of an eco-city: Arcosanti, an urban laboratory located in Arizona, US.

12.30–14.30 (Westernmost battery of Rannakaitsepatarei nr 12) // Out of control: Playing in the cabinet of curiosities of Paljassaare / installation by Dalma Pszota

The surrounding objects and our built environment define us just as much as the ideology we construct when trying to systematize the world. But who has the power and the privilege to decide our future? With the fragments of the Cabinet of Curiosities for the Anthropocene and the (Collage) City, this installation urges us to find a new order to things and reconfigure our role in an ever-accelerating neoliberal reality in the context of Paljassaare.

13.00–15.00 (Paljassaare linnuvaatlustorn/bird tower) // Watching birds from above / installation/intervention by Janosh Heydorn

Conservation areas such as the Paljassaare hoiuala are humanity’s desperate attempts to slow down the extermination of bird species, powered by the exploitation of natural resources and so-called planetary urbanisation. Inspired by Donna Haraway’s thoughts about natureculture, the installation in the bird watchtower questions the precarious understanding of nature and culture as separate entities. By extending bodily senses through the perspective of a drone the work invites us to reflect on our position on Earth somewhere between being an animal and a machine.

13.30–15.30 (ruin next to the wooden walk path) // The urban wild is—everywhere to be felt—nowhere to be noticed / performance and spatial experience by Mira Samonig
A continuously flowing magnitude; from departed to intended, from not-anymore to not-yet, from memory to anticipation, from past to future. The conceptualized circle of time drags one back and forth, to an extent that the actual present existence seems to fade away in space. This performance invites to question the matter of concrete materiality. The terrain vague of Paljassaare acts as an exploratory space to research theory with one’s own matter, the body.

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