Exhibitions

Performance by Heleliis Hõim and Irmeli Terras at Vent Space project space on 6 May, 6-9.30 pm.

A person never wants to feel that they are truly alone. You want to feel protected and guided by some higher power or feel that your choices are directed by someone else, because the most terrifying realisation is that you are alone and that you alone have the responsibility to choose. According to the theory of the origin of beliefs, worshipping objects bestowed with a greater power, i.e. fetishism is the oldest kind of religious belief. What do we do with these objects? What do we use them for? In the contemporary consumerist world, this is pure imagology and often carries a promise of a better life and a better me. We have returned to polytheism and reach out to our gods. “I believe in things, I want things, therefore I am.”

Irmeli Terras, person?, consumer, fetishist, pagan, artist. She studies human psychology and their actions when it comes to consumerism, religion, the occult, fetishism and imagology. She creates performances in which she incorporates various media: sound, vocals, video, dance, installation.

Heleliis Hõim, person, consumer, pagan-being, artist. Consumed media: painting, performance, sculpture, video, dance, sound. A childhood spent in the forests of Estonia convening with the trees and other beings. A consumer of art and culture. A fetish for new materials.

We invite you to the public viewing of the installation SEWN LAND by Laura De Jaeger on the 4th of December from 2-6pm.

For SEWN LAND (2018) De Jaeger divides the gallery space in 2 by placing a replica of the Belgian language border diagonally through it. The installation is an investigation of a line, an object connecting two points, creating two spaces, breaking them or overlapping. When that line is a border, one only visible on a map, and stolen out of its context, it becomes an almost romantic object. However, it is man made and artificial, it is a carrier of history and movement. It creates it’s own nature and flows organically. You could almost see it as a crack in the earth, or the mountains touching the sky.

The shape is covered with yellow sewing thread: an act of healing of a 16 century wounded line. In space you find 3 Brussels sprouts sewn with the same thread – apart, yet bound – different, yet the same. Yellow, as the basic foundation of the two flags, a colour that according to Kandinsky reaches out rather than pulls back into itself. As in real life, we can not visually sense the border, the artist translated the line in another sense: a sound in the space vibrates, and by that covers every movement and corner it takes.

Laura De Jaeger (1995) is a Belgian visual artist who explores organic matter through space. Humanity, their natural habitat, but also impermanence often touches her work. By translating universal themes to visual poetry, she asks questions about the forgotten corners of our surroundings.
De Jaeger (LUCA School of Arts in Brussels) is currently an exchange student in the 3rd year BA Sculpture and Installation Department in The Estonian Academy of Arts.

Vent Space is supported by the Student Council of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

On Wednesday, the 12th of December at 19 o’clock, we will open the exhibition “Disassemble” at Vent Space (Vabaduse väljak 6/8). The exhibition is open from 13 to 19 of December from 14-20 o’clock.

It is the first group show of the students of the 2nd year of photography department.

The participating artists: Kristiina Aarna, Ben Caro, Gerda Nurk, Diana Olesjuk, Anna Pazucha, Pille-Riin Vihtre & Lisann Lillevere.

Through their individual visions they propose unique viewpoints of their surroundings. By looking closer they have re-constructed reality within the photographic frame to ask us to question hierarchies both inside and outside the image. Furthermore they have de-constructed reality and built a meditative space into which they invite us into. De-constructing familiar places through a rather personal view. Using a historical viewpoint to highlight overlooked traces visible under close looking.

Vent Space is supported by the Student Council of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Angela ‘Goo’ Ramírez will open the evolving exhibition “Sometimes We Remember [Remembered]” at Vent Space on Friday, February 15, 2019 at 7:30pm. The exhibition and artist residence will be open from Monday to Thursday from 1pm to 5pm and Saturdays and Sundays from 1pm to 7pm until February 28. Finissage will take place on Friday, March 1st, 2019 at 7:30pm.

Goo is currently interested in exploring the consciousness of our own memory, called metamemory, through the materialization of the effort of remembering.

“Sometimes We Remember [Remembered]” is an exhibition exploring the metamemory of the exhibition “Sometimes We Remember”. By withdrawing to the past, time – the essential material for memory – reveals how we creatively transform our own memories through selection, oblivion and imagination to fit our current needs.

Angela ‘Goo’ has a background in spatial and urban design and pedagogy. She has worked as a researcher for the Tecnologico de Monterrey University and curated architecture/art exhibitions in the City Museum in Queretaro, Mexico. She is currently studying the MA Program of Contemporary Art at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Vent Space is supported by the Student Council of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Kadri Liis Rääk and Wondering O (Mihkel Tomberg) will open their audiovisual installation “Rhizopia2” at Vent Space project space on 3 March 2019, at 7pm. An improvisational live-concert will take place on the opening evening.

Rhizopia2 is a constantly developing and changing multidisciplinary environment, which is activated by the people that enter it. Rhizotopia i.e. a rhizomatic utopia is a living organism, a speculative narrative where meaning is created in an infinite number of junctions. Stories of pasts, presents and futures keep the organism alive, feed it and maintain it. Rhizotopia is a tactile playground, which everyone can join and come listen to stories. Blurring the borders sparks connections.

Kadri Liis Rääk is currently graduating from the fine art masters course at the Estonian Academy of Arts. She finished studies in scenography at EKA as well as a masters in autonomous design at KASK University in Gent, Belgium. This installation is part of a continuation of a work which started at KASK. Her area of research is senses in a mediated reality: the sensory organs as interfaces for creating and conceptualising the world. Currently, she is focused more on tackling speculative narratives and studying posthumanism in an installation-based context.

Mihkel Tomberg is studying audiovisual composition at the Estonian Academy of Music and Theatre. He is known for the projects “Algorütmid” and “Heaven’s Trumpet” and had contributed various sound designs for many audiovisual projects. He has participated in exhibitions in Estonia and Italy.

The exhibition will be open 4-5 March, 2pm-7pm.

Vent Space is supported by the Student Council of the Estonian Academy of Arts.

You are welcome!
Live graffiti, music, and rhymes.
Performance by the one and only SELJOS

DJ:
—Ken Two
https://www.facebook.com/djkentwo/
—Q100
https://www.facebook.com/iamq100/

MC:
Päda and Ronaldo Da Vinci
https://www.facebook.com/kaheksksksa/

The solo exhibition “Silence from the Ceiling” by Mari-Liis Sõrg will be opened at Vent Space project space on Thursday, 25 April 2019 at 6pm. The exhibition will be open until 28 April 2019, Fri 2-7pm and Sat, Sun 12-6pm.

Mari-Liis Sõrg tackles the stories behind views that have entrenched themselves in the mind,
despite not being remembered. In a world, where moments have lost their duration, the fear of oblivion grows. Grasped by this fear, we begin to record the past and the present, the troubling
disquiet forces us to collect views, objects, data, writings. The calm that has been lost in the
panicked fervour of collecting is replaced by an uncertain perspective concerning the future. That said, the moments, which we have not attempted to archive, can enjoy the silence and freedom.
Using painting and photography, she looks at the discrepancy between depiction and conservation.

Mari-Liis Sõrg has graduated from the department of graphic art at the Estonian Academy of Arts (BA 2018) and is continuing her studied in the contemporary art programme (MA).

Vent Space is supported by the Student Council of Estonian Academy of Arts.

Our planet is dying.

A breakdown of our climate and ecology could very well drive humans and other animals to extinction within a couple of generations.

Governments and big corporations are busy making up excuses and hiding the truth, to steer the conversation away from the problems.

Is anyone dealing with this situation at all?

Yes!

From 15-21 April, the Week of International Rebellion is taking place in cities all over the world. Started by the Extinction Rebellion movement, these mass protests are spreading all over the world, with the epicentre in London.

The protesters have occupied important roads in cities, disrupting everyday hustle and bustle and demanding immediate action concerning the crisis, despite the mass arrests taking place.

Vent Space will be the climate protest centre of Estonia from 19-23 April. We will be broadcasting live events taking place in London, Estonia and other parts of the world, supporting the brave activists fighting for our future. Workshops and presentations on the subject of the climate crisis will also be held.

Vernissage on 19 April at 7 pm.

Additional information on the workshops and presentations TBA.

The project is lead by Tiiu Lausmaa, alumni of EAA painting department, year 2018 (bachelor’s degree), along with the rest of the XR Estonia team.

The group exhibition “Lasnamäe?”
will open at Vent Space project space on Friday, 12 April 2019 at 7pm. The exhibition will remain open until 17 April.

Participating artists: Anna Kaarma,
Lee Kelomees, Tõnis Laurson, Tiiu Lausmaa, Janne Lias, Riin Maide,
Vassa Ponomarjova

Considering Lasnamäe, the first things that spring to mind are the rows of prefabricated buildings and the wastelands interspersed between them. As a manifestation of a characterless, purely utilitarian space in the cityscape, it continues to be an important and intriguing environment for us, the young people born in the former Soviet Union or right after its collapse. The impersonal nature of Lasnamäe provides us with breathing space, creating a gap into which it was possible for us to write our story. It is our conceptual playground between the real playgrounds and rows of windows, where memories and the emotions they conjure intertwine with the foreign, thereby making it familiar.

The exhibition does not aspire to be an overview nor a broad research of the given subject, we have selected examples from the work by students at the fine art department at EKA created in recent years. The decisive factor in most of the works is coincidence, the initial task of the artist was not to depict Lasnamäe, these works have been by-products in the processes of other works.

The exhibition will remain open during April 13–17 from 12pm to 6pm.

Anna Kaarma (1992) received her bachelor’s degree in graphic design at EKA (2015) and will graduate from her master’s studies in photography/contemporary art this spring. Concurrently, she is preparing a second solo exhibition, which looks at the architectural aesthetics and ideological frame of reference for Lasnamäe, to which she ascribes a human perspective and dreamlike spatial experience through her own perspective. That said, she is also attempting to work past the anonymity of the district and reach its origin. A lifelong inhabitant of Lasnamäe.

Lee Kelomees (1995) is a photographer with a bachelor’s degree from the Estonian Academy of Arts and has lived in Lasnamäe since her early childhood. The inspiration for Lee’s previous work has been the industrial romance unfolding from the window of her 11th floor childhood home, which can be considered her emotional shelter and carrying force, based on her previous work.

Tõnis Laurson (1996) is studying graphic art at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. He has lived in Lasnamäe for the past two years, but was not born there nor did he grow up there, therefore, it would be an exaggeration to claim he is from Lasnamäe. That said, living deep in Lasnamäe, the peculiarities of the district have influenced his work in many ways.

Tiiu Lausmaa (1989) graduated from the bachelor’s studies at the painting department of the Estonian Academy of Arts in 2018. She was 2 years old when she moved to Lasnamäe and, for her, it was her first home. She thinks, it was a good place to grow up: it wasn’t too sleek or safe, instead, you could experience real life. There were playgrounds meant for children, but the little woods and wastelands, where you could create your own world, were much more interesting.

Janne Lias (1981) is studying painting at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. She was 10 years old, when her family moved from a Mustamäe dormitory room to a 3-room apartment in Lasnamäe with all the conveniences. While she was trying to acclimatise to Lasnamäe, Ivo Linna sang “Stop Lasnamäe!” on the radio. Janne moved away from Lasnamäe already at the beginning of the 2000s, but the awkwardness of living in the wrong place has remained.

Riin Maide (1997) is studying graphic art at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Riin has lived in a prefabricated building, although, in Keila, where there were precisely three buildings tall enough to require a lift. All those “Lasna” and other “mäed” (hills) seem utopic, because the buildings there really are full of people.

Vassa Ponomarjova (1984) is studying painting at the fine art department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Vassa lived in Lasnamäe for 2 years, now she lives in Õismäe. She considers Lasnamäe to be an area separated from the rest of Tallinn – a city within a city, where the mentality is a little different to that which exists in the rest of Tallinn.

From March 29 to April 18 at Art Gallery PUTTI is going to be ESTONISHING!

Estonian contemporary jewelry artists will exhibit their artwork at the group exhibition FOGSPEAK / UDUJUTT

The dense fog reduces visibility but strengthens beauty. It warns our insecurities but opens new perspectives. Fog is volatile though tangible. It allows us to feel the ethereal un gives us space to breath. Gray-toned verticals and foggy conversations will be created by a group of contemporary jewellery artists from Estonia at Art gallery PUTTI.

ESTONISHING!: 13 Estonian artists with a collective national identity background, folk traditions and history, yet they all are so distinct from one another – each with their own individual identity and character. They are like a metaphor that unifies discrete individualists, each with his or her own signature style. The only true thing that unites them is their desire to unlock their own imaginative world using jewellery as the key.

Tanel Veenre: ‘Our artisan culture is rooted in the forest. It sounds simple, but it is exactly in this feature that there is magic. The archaic yet clean wooden style is at the base of all abstraction. There is no need for noise here; whispers are loud enough.’ Estonian is the only language in the world in which the word for jewellery and sincerity is one and the same – EHE.

Thomas Cohn, a prominent Brazilian gallerist representing Galeria Thomas Cohn in San Paolo, as a bright meteor came to Tallinn to see, get to know the contemporary Estonian jewellery he had heard about. Falling in love with it, he arranged to bring it back to Brazil. Galeria Thomas Cohn premiered the ESTONISHING! jewellery exhibition at Schmuck 2016, the contemporary art jewellery event at the Munich International Skilled Trades Fair.

When asked about the title of the exhibition, Tanel Veenre, its curator, explains: ‘We had come up with several ideas, but then Thomas suggested ESTONISHING! It seemed the best fit because it was immediately clear that the participating artists came from Estonia, plus, a word written in the wrong way instinctively draws attention.’

At the core of the group are two pillars of contemporary Estonian art: Kadri Mälk, internationally renowned jewellery artist and a professor in the Jewellery Department of the Estonian Academy of Arts; and Tanel Veenre, the collective’s mouthpiece, who is also a professor in the Faculty of Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts as well as a photographer, lecturer, and member of many international exhibitions.

Each artist showing work in the exhibition is one of a kind. The artists are both united and contrasting at the same time. When looking at the jewellery that they have created, one senses that when making their pieces, these artists focus on spiritual qualities; the works on view have an introverted quality, perhaps even a touch of darkness to them – features that, just like a fixation on details, are so very characteristic of Northern peoples.

People speak about spiritual endeavors, the wish to be active outside the realm of physical reality. The ability to create noise and scraps while retaining a clear surface. The closeness of nature, the sensitivity of a fingerprint, and even if your ears are not within your field of vision, you cannot escape them.

A piece of contemporary jewellery illustrates a feeling of magic and temptation; much like a cult, nature is an intrinsic part of contemporary jewellery. It is safe to say that, having attracted the attention of the world, the jewellery artists of today’s Estonia form the foundation of the contemporary art jewellery platform. Of course, it is impossible to completely abandon form and context, yet make no mistake – an artist creates not only objects, but also the space for communication between the artwork and the person.

Exhibitions Curators:

Thomas Cohn 1934-2018;

Tanel Veenre

Supporters: Estonian Cultural Foundation

Participants: Sofia Hallik, Nils Hint, Piret Hirv, Julia Maria Künnap, Kristiina Laurits, Eve Margus-Villems, Kadri Mälk, Maarja Niinemägi, Villu Plink, Darja Popolitova, Ketli Tiitsar, Maria Valdma, Tanel Veenre.