Riin Maide and Nele Tiidelepp at Tartu Kunstimaja

Riin Maide and Nele Tiidelepp  joint exhibition “Etudes with imaginary performers” in the monumental gallery of Tartu Art House.

The central idea of the exhibition is the meaningfulness of absence. The artists have observed the traces of activity in the space. Impressions are presented by media and materials.

Riin Maide and Nele Tiidelepp have been inspired by one of the first exercises of those learning to become actors: an etude with an imaginary object. The scene, the subject of which is usually taken from everyday life, is rehearsed as accurately and repeatedly as possible, so that correspondence to the previous reality is preserved even when the objects are removed. In their exhibition, they have left out the performers from the etude. The space and the objects (which try to imitate the presence of the performers as accurately as possible) are left to speak.

Riin Maide (b 1997) has acquired a bachelor’s degree in the Faculty of Fine Arts of the Estonian Academy of Arts, majoring in graphics, and furthered her education in the Department of Alternative and Puppet Theater at DAMU in Prague, majoring in scenography. In 2020, she received the EKA’s Young Artist Award and the Edmund Valtman Scholarship. Site specificity, ephemerality and graphic imagery are important in her work. Through playful installations and theatrical environments, she deals with memory and presence.

Nele Tiidelepp (b 1998) is an artist and writer who graduated the installation and sculpture department of the Estonian Academy of Arts. Her practice is motivated by spontaneous reactions to the environment and materials. Tiidelepp has won the Noor Tartu competition, EKA’s Young Artist Award, SIIL Prize and Millenium Prize, published texts in the journal “Värske Rõhk”, the newspapers “Müürileht” and “Sirp” and participated in exhibitions and art events in Estonia, Belgium, Germany, Italy, Switzerland, Portugal and Finland.

The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
The exhibition is open until 2 October.