Exhibitions
16.10.2026 — 25.10.2026 Exhibition “The Blue Calm of Being” Friday 16 October, 2026 — Sunday 25 October, 2026
The exhibition “The Blue Calm of Being” opens at Uus Rada Gallery on 16 October at 18:00. Its starting points are the sculptures of artist Ülo Õun and Ave Palm’s nature photographs and videos.
The exhibition focuses on portraits from Õun’s sculptural oeuvre that have been described as grotesque, which the artist himself called emotionisms. Sculptures sourced from the collection of the Art Museum of Estonia, photographed in the collection of Tartu Art Museum and in the homes of Õun’s children, have been transformed through the central medium of Palm’s current artistic practice: cyanotype. Behind the sculptures, the images and video sequences are largely based on the movement of water, as well as other, more abstract natural phenomena.
The first compositions of the works by the two artists emerged through the fusion of a photograph of Õun’s sculpture The Pensive Man, located in the grounds of the Tuhala Witch’s Well, with Palm’s abstract nature photographs. Palm was immediately captivated by the sculpture’s symbolic character and the possibility of developing the idea further. Since the original photograph of Õun’s sculpture was taken amidst nature, evoking a luminous combination of spring awakening, flowing water and sunlight, Palm selected complementary images and videos from her own work that conveyed similar phenomena.
Over time, several additional layers have become part of the exhibition: ceramic works and sound compositions by Õun’s daughters Inguna and Laura; sound compositions by Kenn-Eerik Kannike; further developments of artist Baran Caginli’s edible sculptures; and the self-portrait drawing score by artists Andrea Zavala Folache and Adriano Wilfert Jensen. The latter two elements will become interactive parts of the exhibition, which visitors are welcome to engage with.
The aim of the exhibition project is not to present a comprehensive overview of Ülo Õun’s sculptural oeuvre, but rather to pay tribute to his creative and exploratory spirit. After documenting the moment when the Tuhala Witch’s Well began to boil in 2023, Palm began investigating the background of Õun’s artistic practice. It seemed to her that his artistic soul found its truest and most honest expression in the portraits he called emotionisms: strange, distorted, elongated, slender, undulating and bubbling forms. They reflect a sense of eternity, melancholy, longing and emotional depth. It seems only fitting that these works, along with many others by the artist, can still be experienced and encountered in some form today. Although not all the documented works necessarily belong to the category of emotionisms, each selection carries the particular sensibility the exhibition seeks to convey.
For Palm, the creation of exhibition projects begins with moments of recognition and phenomena that resonate deeply. The Blue Calm of Being is an ode to human individuality and the ability to endure and find one’s way through difficulties. It seeks to bring together several attempts to approach the deeper essence of the human being, inevitably embracing a certain measure of intuition and the ineffable — things that can only be sensed with the heart — while preserving a sense of playfulness.
Palm devoted particular attention to developing the project during her residency at KORDON in Hiiumaa in early 2025. During the residency, she produced one cyanotype each day, combining a photograph of a sculpture with imagery drawn from nature. She drew inspiration from walking outdoors and photographing and filming the flow of water and other natural phenomena.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
The exhibition will be open daily at Uus Rada Gallery from 17 to 25 October. Opening hours to be confirmed.
09.10.2026 — 08.11.2026 Group Exhibition “Light Chimes at the Edge of Time” Friday 09 October, 2026 — Sunday 08 November, 2026 Faculty of Fine Arts
Group exhibition “Light Chimes at the Edge of Time” open in the large gallery of the Tartu Art House.
What if science fiction no longer imagines the future, but reveals a present we do not yet understand?
The exhibition brings together seven artists whose work engages with science fiction in one way or another and explores the possibilities of science fiction within the exhibition format, asking whether sci-fi has become a nostalgic image of futures that never came to pass, whether it remains a genre oriented towards and preoccupied with the future, or whether it has become something else entirely.
Since Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, modern science fiction – or simply sci-fi – has stimulated the human imagination by envisioning what does not yet exist. Philosophically, science fiction is one of the most sustained experiments of the past few centuries. It connects imagination with knowledge, speculation with materiality, and asks what the world might be like if we were to alter some of its underlying assumptions. It has produced images of other planets, technologies, societies and futures. In its classic conception, science fiction is located somewhere ahead of us: in a place where reality might theoretically arrive one day. But, increasingly, it seems that the future is no longer there, ahead of us; it may be a condition we already inhabit, already projected into our present.
“What happens when a system can no longer describe reality, yet continues to produce an endless stream of descriptions? It seems that contemporary science fiction occupies precisely this point of contact, where our descriptions meet reality, spill over into it, and reality continues on. In her Cyborg Manifesto, Donna Haraway wrote that the boundary between science fiction and social reality is merely an optical illusion. “Light Chimes at the Edge of Time” examines this boundary and its immediate surroundings as a place where something is taking shape, making itself visible, audible, perceptible, comprehensible or simply known,” the artists explain.
The exhibition has no single curator; its final form has emerged through a shared process of discussion and creative practice among the artists, in which the symbiosis between works creates opportunities for new worlds and new encounters.
Artists: Katrin Enni, Sandra Ernits, Marten Esko, Mihkel Ilus, Olev Kuma, Holger Loodus and Solveig Lill
Graphic design by: Tüpokompanii
Thanks: Alejandro Montes de Oca, Claudia Schnugg, Eesti kunstiakadeemia, Elena Pietrini, perekond Ernits, Hans Lillemets, Jan Schacher, Julius Thomas, Katariina Tamm, Margus Elizarov, Mihkel Raev, Mihkel Tomberg, RepliFate võrgustik, Silpa-Mary Johnson, Taavi Teevet, Tanel Paliale, Virginia Pasti
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia.
09.10.2026 — 09.11.2026 Group Exhibition “We Have a Land of Words” Friday 09 October, 2026 — Monday 09 November, 2026
EKKM’s new exhibition explores the poetic and personal as a counterforce to political reality.
On 9 October at 7 pm, the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) will open the group exhibition We Have a Land of Words [1]. Making a long-distance call to Southwest Asia, the exhibition approaches a complex subject by moving from generalised media narratives and ideological frameworks to the stories and lived experiences of individuals. Curator Evelyn Raudsepp shaped the exhibition through video interviews with Palestinian curators, drawing on the observations, experiences and reflections that emerge through personal conversations.
The exhibition brings together works by several internationally acclaimed artists whose relationships to the region are inseparable from their artistic practices. In Mona Hatoum’s work, intimate correspondence with her mother reveals how political conflict permeates even the most private domestic spheres of everyday life. Larissa Sansour’s film, which shows her family gathered around the dinner table, demonstrates just how short the distance from soup to politics can be.
Writing, storytelling, singing, and cooking can become everyday practices of resistance, sustaining connections with a land torn apart. In the hypnotic video installation by Basel Abbas and Ruanne Abou-Rahme, songs and dances carry intergenerational memory while offering ways of coping, both mentally and physically, with colonial violence. Jumana Manna’s quilted and embroidered flags weave together different forms of collective resistance, holding within it the Palestinian spirit of defiance.
Across the exhibition, words also bring lost places back into view. Forensic Architecture uses digital 3D modelling and architectural analysis to reconstruct a Palestinian historian’s home village, destroyed in 1948, from his memories and testimony. Dahaleez Collective’s sound work reimagines a street in Gaza through field recordings and local descriptions, tracing a place that has been transformed beyond recognition, both visually and sonically.
Stories from the Southwest Asia reach Estonia largely through mediated forms: conflicting news reports, statistics, and a relentless audiovisual stream of violence. The exhibition seeks to interrupt this distance by foregrounding human experience and creating possibilities for more direct forms of contact. Through the intimate act of shaping clay, a connection is forged between two artists separated by distance – one in Gaza, the other in Tallinn. Due to restrictions on the movement of both materials and people, Yasmeen Al Daya’s sculpture has been recreated in local clay by Keithy Kuuspu, in close collaboration with the artist.
New works by Estonian artists draw connections with their earlier encounters with the region. Laura Põld brings together experiences from artist residencies in Iran with discoveries from her family archive. Dénes Farkas presents photographs taken before he became an artist, including images of places in Israel and the occupied Palestinian territories that are now inaccessible, alongside more recent works that have circulated internationally. The exhibition’s archival layer traces the fragmented history of knowledge and perceptions of Palestine in Estonia, asking what has shaped them at different times.
The exhibition design by artist Anu Vahtra works with the historical layers embedded in EKKM’s spaces, continuing, in the museum’s anniversary year, to foreground its raw and flexible backbone – a space willing to engage with society’s uncomfortable pressure points.
We Have a Land of Words is grounded in the idea that when political reality reaches an impasse, collective imagination can act as a poetic counterforce and an active process through which we can envision both the past and the future differently – rewriting historical narratives, preserving cultural memory, and means of imagining social relationships beyond the limits imposed by political reality. If we have the possibility to create a land out of words, what kind of world do we want to build together?
Opening night programme on 9 October
18:00 Exhibition opens
18:00–20:00 Music selected by the curator
19:00 Opening remarks and an introduction to the exhibition by the curator
20:00–22:00 DJ Shah Rud b2b Dharma Doom (Shelter)
Artists: Basel Abbas ja Ruanne Abou-Rahme, Dahaleez Collective, Dénes Farkas, Forensic Architecture, Jumana Manna, Keithy Kuuspu, Larissa Sansour, Laura Põld, Mona Hatoum, Yasmeen Al Daya
Curator: Evelyn Raudsepp
Consultants: Ahmad Alaqra, Amer Shomaly, Lara Khaldi, Noor Abed, Yasmin Huleileh, Yazan Khalili,
Exhibition designer: Anu Vahtra
Public programme curators: Anita Kodanik, Sanna Kartau and Evelyn Raudsepp
Curated book corner in collaboration with the Estonian Academy of Arts Library.
Special thanks to: Ahmad Hussein, Aline Khoury, Daniel Vaarik, Linda Kaljundi, Maria-Kristiina Soomre, OTO Museum, Paul O’Neill, Meelis Oidsalu, Sif Lindblad and others
Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Estonian Ministry of Culture, City of Tallinn
[1] The title is taken from the Estonian-language poetry collection of the same name by Mahmoud Darwish, one of Palestine’s best-known poets. It is also the only book by a Palestinian author published in Estonian. Compiled and translated by Amar Annus; published by the Estonian Language Foundation / EKSA, 2011.
16.10.2026 — 18.10.2026 Getriin Kotsar & Maria Helena Seppik „home.house.hardcore.“ at EKA Gallery 16.–18.10.2026 Friday 16 October, 2026 — Sunday 18 October, 2026 Contemporary Art
Getriin Kotsar & Maria Helena Seppik
“home.house.hardcore.”
EKA Gallery 16.–18.10.2026
The project “home.house.hardcore.” focuses on the possibility of creating a sanctuary, driven by a lack of security, stability, and opportunity. The young artists are interested in how to create a space for a few days that resembles a home in the best sense of the word—a place that is safe and warm. The entire work stems from the artists’ interest in fragility, an unstable world, and crumbling materiality. Together with visitors, both the performance and the installation seek ways to maintain a sense of hope and security, even in the face of challenging circumstances.
The performance lasts for 12 hours, beginning at 7 pm on October 16 and concluding at 7 am on the morning of October 17. The installation is open to the public during EKA Gallery’s regular opening hours on October 17 and 18 (Sat 12–6 pm and Sun 12–4 pm).
Performance artists: Getriin Kotsar, Maria Helena Seppik
Sound design: Kaur Tõra
Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The project is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tallinn City, Uuskasutuskeskus and Sadolin Estonia.
Drinks served during the performance from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.
01.10.2026 — 30.10.2026 Kristiina Aarna “Then You Have to Take Care of It All the Time” Thursday 01 October, 2026 — Friday 30 October, 2026 Contemporary Art
Motherhood and care work are closely intertwined. The exhibition explores how to represent an experience that society idealises, yet rarely discusses in all its complexity. In the discourse surrounding motherhood, the author argues, questions of who carries out the everyday care work and at what cost tend to remain in the background. In Estonia, there are a great many single parents, 95% of whom are women. Unpaid care work — raising children, managing household life, and providing emotional security — continues to fall primarily on women’s shoulders, affecting their economic independence, health, and opportunities to participate in society on an equal footing.
Kristiina Aarna studied photography (BA) and contemporary art (MA) at the Estonian Academy of Arts and is currently pursuing a doctoral degree, researching the representation of motherhood in contemporary Estonian art.
The exhibition features three works:
“Flowers for Mother” — photographic series (2023–2026)
“Reasons to Become / Not Become a Mother” — embroidery (2025–2026)
“518 Days” — artist’s book (2023). Graphic design:Mirjam Varik
04.10.2026 — 11.10.2026 Kristen Punger “At the End of the Storm, There’s a Golden Sky” @ KESKPUUR Sunday 04 October, 2026 — Sunday 11 October, 2026 Faculty of Fine Arts
The opening of Kristen Punger’s first solo exhibition will take place on October 3 at 12:00. Drinks for the opening will be provided by Põhjala.
Keskpuur Gallery, Keldrimäe 9(2nd floor)
Sat&Sun 11-15 or by appointment: senja.keskpuur@gmail.com
*opening hours might differ*
Throughout my high school years, I have accumulated an entire cabinet full of scraps of paper: drawings, reminders, homework, and other paper materials containing personal information. Now, as I begin a new chapter of my life by entering university, I feel the need to make space at home and let go of the past.
In order to make space, leave the past behind, and start with a fresh piece of paper figuratively, I decided to get rid of old pieces of papers literally. Yet they still hold significance – they carry memories, traces of my artistic development, and recollections of my difficult years of high school. That is precisely why simply throwing them away felt wrong. This exhibition tries to give a proper farewell to those papers and with them to my high-school years, helping me to finally let go.
After the exhibition, all the papers will be burned, freeing the space for the future.
…
Kristen Punger (2007) is a young independent artist based in Tallinn, working with installation and spatial practices. In 2026, he graduated from Tallinn Art Gymnasium and began studying blacksmithing at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Kristen’s practice explores the relationship between personal experience, memory, and physical space, often transforming unwanted materials and environments into immersive and interactive installations. His work is influenced by an interest in political activism, an earlier involvement with street art, and possibilities of how personal and collective stories can occupy space.
He also works as an assistant at Keskpuur Gallery and is independently developing his own gallery space, „Pink”, which will open soon.
…
The exhibition’s finissage will take place on 11 October, curated by Senja Savtšenko & Uku Õunapuu, with space design by Anastasija.
The day will begin at 12:00 with a DJ set by uju (Uku Õunapuu), who will also be making waffles for visitors — so come early!
From 13:00–13:30, the Italian trio CANETAMBURO (Elia Dell’Orco, Eugenio Cecchini, and Gabriele Teti) will present a live electroacoustic set.
Following the performance, the programme will continue with ambient music and conversations until around 16:00.
The finissage will mark the closing of Kristen’s exhibition and the opening transition towards the next exhibition by Beate & Jegor, on view from 17 October to 15 November.
The event also marks the beginning of a new chapter for the space. We look forward to introducing our new team and sharing more about our vision and programme with you. More information coming soon!
06.10.2026 — 24.10.2026 Mirjam Varik and Juulia Aleksandra Mikson “Luht /(Flood) Meadow” Tuesday 06 October, 2026 — Saturday 24 October, 2026 Graphic Art
Mirjam Varik’s and Juulia Aleksandra Mikson’s exhibition focuses on a landscape familiar to both artists: Matsalu. Together, they observe the quiet movement of nature, which may, at first glance, appear to be a state of stillness. A flower grows in the garden bed, junipers spread along the edge of the meadow, a cloud lingers in the sky, and visible movement has come to a halt as the stillness of summer takes hold.
Both Varik and Mikson work with the medium of screen printing. They depict nature as a marker of time and space, weaving the local heritage of the Matsalu region through generations. The environment from which we have come and into which we disappear is only like this for a moment, until a ray of sunlight flashes from beyond the clouds and the Earth is once again different. The relief-like images, both in clay and on paper, refer to forms characteristic of Matsalu: clayey soil and the wind-exposed landscape, where views of the clouds are in constant flux. On the one hand, the surroundings are in perpetual transformation; on the other, they may seem uneventful to the human observer. In such a place, adaptation begins only when the viewer merges with the environment and learns to sense its natural rhythm.
ABOUT THE ARTISTS:
Mirjam Varik (1990) studied photography at the Tartu Art College (2014) and as an exchange student at the University of Arts Linz. She graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a degree in Graphic Design (2021), followed by a Master’s degree in Contemporary Art (2024). Since 2023, she has worked with screen-printing in the Department of Printmaking.
In her artistic practice, Varik articulates seemingly insignificant moments that have a lasting impact on the formation of a person. Through photography, video and installation, she explores childhood experiences and identity in a narrative manner, focusing on memories, places and phenomena.
Juulia Aleksandra Mikson (1998) studied Textile Design at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2022). She has also furthered her studies in fashion and styling in Cyprus and at a plant-dyeing laboratory in Italy. She completed her Master’s degree in Craft Studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2025). Since 2022, she has worked as a screen-printing studio technician in the Department of Textile Design.
Juulia Aleksandra Mikson is a textile artist who explores the boundaries between materials. Her working process stems from the properties of the material, allowing the material itself to become a guide that shapes the dynamics of creation. In her liminal practice, she has combined textiles with clay as well as metal with textiles, discovering new layers in the relationships between materials. For Mikson, themes concerning the relationships between humans, the Earth and nature are of particular importance.
Graphic design: Martin Pedanik
With thanks to: EKA Department of Textile Design, EKA Department of Printmaking, Craftrag, Martin Mikson
Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Põhjala Brewery
01.10.2026 — 28.11.2026 Group Exhibition “The Motorway is Clearly Audible Even with the Curtains Drawn” Thursday 01 October, 2026 — Saturday 28 November, 2026 Faculty of Fine Arts
On Thursday, 1 October, at 6:00 PM, the international group exhibition The Motorway is Clearly Audible Even with the Curtains Drawn will open at the FOKU Gallery, featuring artists Miklos Gaál (FI/NL), Katja Mater (BE/NL), and Mirjam Varik (EE). The curator of the exhibition is Tuukka Kaila (FI/EE).
The exhibition proposes an understanding of space as actively produced by those who experience it. Both intentionally and unconsciously, space is shaped through individual acts as well as shared patterns of behaviour. Rather than an empty container or passive stage, space is regarded here as an ever-changing social construct, a negotiation between its physical characteristics and their subjective interpretation.
The title of the show The motorway is clearly audible even with the curtains drawn quotes an Airbnb user review. On the platform, users share their experiences of the listed spaces with the purpose of helping others imagine what it’s like to spend time in them.
The exhibition will remain open at the FOKU Gallery until 28 November 2026.
FOKU Gallery is a gallery-showroom focused on contemporary lens-based art. FOKU Gallery is run by the Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU).
Supporters:
Cultural Endowment of Estonia
Alfred Kordelin foundation
Partner:
Rüki galerii
Opening drinks by:
Mikkeller
22.09.2026 — 14.11.2026 LLRRLLRR Exhibition “Loose Knots” in Prague Tuesday 22 September, 2026 — Saturday 14 November, 2026 Architecture and Urban Design
On Tuesday, 22 September, an exhibition titled Loose Knots by the Estonian architecture practice LLRRLLRR opens at the architecture gallery VI PER in Prague.
Laura Linsi and Roland Reemaa (LLRRLLRR) present three projects that draw inspiration from traditional practices of reuse and adaptation, the robustness characteristic of the Baltic landscape, and collectively emerging pedagogies. The exhibition explores alternative paths to the norms established within the architectural profession. Through their projects, LLRRLLRR seek to question prevailing tastes, funding models, and established practices of architectural competitions and commissioning processes, which have become central to shaping architectural practice.
In addition to the duo’s projects, the exhibition presents the works produced during Paraply, an architecture summer workshop that Laura and Roland led in Copenhagen. The exhibition features works by Estonian textile artist Johanna Ulfsak and English-Belgian artist Chris Evans, with whom the architects collaborate closely on numerous projects.
Laura Linsi and Roland Reemaa teach diploma studios at the Estonian Academy of Arts and at Central Saint Martins, University of the Arts London. Roland is a visiting professor at the Estonian Academy of Arts, while Laura is editor-in-chief of the Estonian architecture magazine MAJA. Both practise as architects and work across the expanded field of spatial practice.
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the Embassy of Estonia in Prague.
Web:
https://www.vipergallery.org/en/exhibition/llrrllrr-loose-knots
https://llrrllrr.com
Instagram:
@llrrllrr_studio
@vipergallery
25.09.2026 — 26.09.2026 Tartu Illustration Festival 2026 Friday 25 September, 2026 — Saturday 26 September, 2026 Faculty of Design
Tartu Illustration Festival (TIF) is taking place for the third time this year and, for the first time, as a two-day festival on September 25–26 at Aparaaditehas in Tartu.
The festival brings together illustrators, designers and visual artists from Estonia and elsewhere in Europe, welcoming professionals, students and anyone interested in illustration. TIF 2026 focuses on playful patterns, exploring textures, repetition and rhythm while encouraging experimentation with different techniques, materials and approaches. Over the two days, the programme includes hands-on workshops, talks and a panel discussion, with opportunities to create a board game using screen printing, make collages inspired by the architecture of Annelinn, take part in a croquis drawing session with dogs, and join a speed-meeting event for writers and illustrators.
Visitors can also explore the international exhibition “A Bright Memory” and an illustration market. Among the festival guests are Finnish pattern designer Lotta Maija, British illustrator and designer Ryan Chapman, and Slovenian picture-book illustrator Damijan Stepančič.
TIF is a meeting place where professionals and curious visitors can come together to explore the possibilities of visual storytelling and illustration.
More information: illustrationfestival.com