Exhibitions

On August 27. at 17:00 a group exhibition of contemporary women jewellers titled You’re Nobody ‘Till Somebody Loves You, will open at the HOP gallery.

The truth is, we want only for love. We want to be cherished, needed, protected. We desperately want to be intimate and vulnerable with an other. When love has been given or taken, denied or refused, found or lost; the ache of the heart becomes profound and pieces of jewellery become unapologetic love letters of desire, remorse, joy and loss. 

Nine contemporary women jewellers have been invited to make new, single pieces of jewellery based on their interpretation of the exhibition title per their own experiences – with or without, in and out of love. This is where the exhibition begins.

Curated by Erinn M. Cox

Participating artists: Erinn M. Cox, Piret Hirv, Katarina Kotselainen, Kristiina Laurits, Eve Margus, Erle Nemvalts, Pilvi Tammoja, Ketli Tiitsar, Hanna-Maria Vanaküla

Join us for a tour with the exhibition curator, Erinn M. Cox, on Thursday, September 3, 2026 at 17.00 [in English]

Join us for a tour of the exhibition on Thursday, September 10, 2026 at 17.00 [in Estonian]

The exhibition is open until September 27, 2026.

Special thanks: Estonian Ministry of Culture, Eesti Kultuurkapital, Estonian Artists’ Association, and Liviko Ltd.

28 August – 27 September 2026
Hobusepea Gallery, Tallinn

On 27 August at 6:30 PM, the artist Andre Joosep Arming’s debut solo exhibition Chain Reaction will open at the Hobusepea Gallery with a festive, Renaissance-themed masquerade ball, directed by Linda Mai Kari.

The exhibition is an exploration of human fragility, solitude, adaptation and perseverance, focusing on the tension field between the ending of life and new beginnings. The exhibition will remain open until 27 September.

Chain Reaction is about celebrating the joy of existence and the privilege of being alive. Arming’s works serve as a poignant reminder to inhabit the present fully, with complete intensity, despite not knowing what the future holds. The artist adds: “I would like to remind everyone and acknowledge that life is hard, but it is worth it.”

The exhibition showcases works from 2018–2025, alongside three new series created specifically for the show: Don Quixote I, Detachment Does Not Exist and Epistemic Heart. A core element of Arming’s practice is the poetic autobiographical portrait, through which he presents an uplifting, life-affirming philosophy despite a complex medical background. His works move across the border between personal and universal, intertwining memories, identity, time, love and mortality.

Arming draws inspiration from both pop culture and the visual everyday environment. In his works, maximalism manifests itself not only as an aesthetic choice, but also as a viable lifestyle and resistance to simplification. During the exhibition, the artist’s alter ego “Non Mors” also comes to life, opening up the theme of death through playfulness, absurdity and drama.

Andre Joosep Arming (b. 1995) holds a BA in Photography (2018) and an MA in Contemporary Art (2024) from the Estonian Academy of Arts. His practice primarily utilises Polaroid photography and video. Recurring themes in his work include autobiography, the cyclical nature of birth and death, and the concept of timelines. Arming is a member of the Estonian Union of Photography Artists (FOKU) and the Estonian Artists’ Association, and has participated in numerous group exhibitions across Europe (including Germany and Lithuania). He is also a member of the NGO Siirdatud süda (Transplanted Heart).

Dream team: Kleer Keret Tali, Helle Ly Tomberg, Karl-Christoph Rebane, Linda Mai Kari, Sirel Soans, Mio Kurm, Johanna Ruukholm, Reimo Võsa-Tangsoo, Hans-Otto Ojaste, Johannes Säre, Hugo Leinola and Artproof.

Exhibitions in the Hobusepea Gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Estonian Ministry of Culture and Liviko AS. The gallery is managed by the Estonian Artists’ Association.

The Bootleg Service exhibition invites you to look at the familiar with a new perspective and discover how artists from different backgrounds have reinterpreted a single starting point for themselves.

The exhibition brings together different perspectives, styles and interpretations, which can be playful, unsettling, repulsive or captivating. A single starting point can become something completely new in the hands of different artists, and through their approaches, new connections, forms and meanings emerge.

The artists participating in the exhibition are Robert Kapanen, Paul Aadam Mikson, Kassandra Laur, Allan Suomalainen and Riste Sofie Käär.

Exhibition is curated by the Bluff Ateljee team, Martin Kislõi, Anna Elisabeth Remmelg and Mark Kokotov.

Graphic design is by Martin Kislõi.

Exhibition opening will take place on 27.08 at 19:00, featuring a performance by Riste Sofie Käär.

Exhibition is open from 27.08–04.09, from 13:00–19:00, at Kopli tänav 85.

Exhibition opening is sponsored by Põhjala.

On Wednesday, September 2 at 4–6 pm, as part of the exhibition “The Island of Girls” at EKA Gallery, artist and designer Katya Lesiv (@katya.lesiv) will share her practice and work over tea. During the conversation, we will drink tea together, sit around the table, and talk.

The event is free, but places are limited (up to 20 participants). Please register in advance here.

⬇️

Katya Lesiv currently lives and works between Ukraine and Finland. Her practice explores cyclicality, physicality, emotional and sensitive experience, and motherhood. She works across photography, artist books, installation, objects, text, graphics, and moving image. Performative methods, often rooted in everyday rituals, allow her to encapsulate and share intimate experiences while safeguarding personal space. The body of the book often serves as the final form of her work.

Lesiv’s work has been exhibited in solo exhibitions in Ukraine, Finland, and the Netherlands, as well as in curated group exhibitions internationally. Her photobook Lullaby 1 was included among the top 100 photobooks in How We See: Photobooks by Women, selected by 10×10 Photobooks. Her book I Love You was shortlisted for the Aperture PhotoBook Awards in 2022. In 2024, she was nominated by ISSP to join the FUTURES Photography Platform. Lesiv is a member of the Association of Photographic Artists in Finland and the Finnish Darkroom Association.

Read more about the exhibition here.

On August 22 and 24 at 6pm, a communal dinner and embroidery workshop will take place part of the exhibition “The Island of Girls”.

Food will be prepared using recipes created by Aly Sparkling Beveridge (@alysparklingbeveridge). The food is prepared and the workshop is led by Helena Atkin, Mariia Chudna and Daria Titova.

The table will become a place to share food, recipes, stories, and fairy tales about resistance, survival, home, and escape. Guests will also contribute to a shared embroidered tablecloth, stitching onto it the things they wish to leave behind. As the dinners continue, the tablecloth will grow with the stories of the people who gathered around it.

You don’t need to bring a story or know what you want to say. You can come to share, listen, eat, embroid, or simply sit at the table.

The dinners are free, but places are limited (up to 10 participants). Please register for one of the two evenings in advance here.

Read more about the exhibition here.

“The Island of Girls”
EKA Gallery 22.08.–6.09.2026
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, August 21 at 6 pm

What if there was a utopian island? A place where fragility, kindness, vulnerability, and care were not seen as weaknesses, but as forms of resistance and escape.

“The Island of Girls” is a feminist group exhibition and storytelling project that imagines a fictional island inhabited by girls alongside flowers and nature. Here, there is no war and no grief. Flowers and plants become symbols of resistance, while tenderness, imagination, and care become ways of surviving and creating another reality.

The project grows from Ukrainian artist Daria Titova’s lived experience of war and explores childhood, grief, home, and the need to create spaces where imagination can offer refuge. The “girls” of the island are not a restriction upon gender, but rather a symbol of openness, curiosity, sincerity, and the belief that the world can be different. Anyone is welcome here.

The exhibition features Titova’s visual works alongside Mariia Chudna’s ceramics and Helena Atkin’s original music. Natalia Stojkova and Kornélia Nemcová present their film “A Woman’s War”, adding another perspective on women’s experiences of war.

During the exhibition, the island will also become a space for shared meals and storytelling. Communal dinners planned by Aly Sparkling Beveridge will take place on August 22 and 24, bringing visitors together around food, conversation, and shared stories. On September 2, artist and designer Katya Lesiv will have an artist talk and lead a tea ceremony.

Programme:
The number of participants is limited, please sign up in advance!

• On Saturday, August 22 at 6–9 pm communal dinner and embroidery workshop. Register here
• On Monday, August 24 at 6–9 pm communal dinner and embroidery workshop. Register here
• Wednesday, September 2, 4–6 pm artist talk & tea ceremony with Katya Lesiv. Register here

Participating artists: Helena Atkin, Aly Sparkling Beveridge, Mariia Chudna, Natalia Stojkova & Kornélia Nemcová, Daria Titova
Project initiator: Daria Titova
Graphic design: Teele Kiisk
Technical support: Eugenio Marini
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Tallinn City and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.

11.07.2026–25.10.2026

From 11 July, Tartu Art Museum’s project space will present Kaisa Maasik’s solo exhibition The Lightness of Being as part of the Young Tartu exhibition series.

Kaisa Maasik’s solo exhibition The Lightness of Being focuses on ordinary yet beautiful moments that are easy to overlook. These may be a fleeting smile between two strangers, the first day after a long winter when you can finally swap your boots for sneakers, or the sound of rain tapping on a windowsill that briefly wakes you in the night before lulling you back to sleep. Maasik’s works are rooted in observation and attentiveness, bringing together collected moments and everyday observations shared by different people. Against the backdrop of rapid information flows and constant competition for our attention in digital environments, the exhibition invites visitors to slow down and notice what usually remains in the background – situations that could happen to any of us and that remind us that life is largely made up of such small, genuine moments.

The Young Tartu exhibition series was launched in 2017 with the aim of promoting and supporting the work of emerging artists connected to Tartu. Previous participants in the programme have included Sten Eltermaa, Keiu Maasik, Mirjam Hinn, Siiri Jüris, Nele Marie Tiidelepp, Tõnis Jürgens and Viktoria Berezina.

Kaisa Maasik’s exhibition will take place in the project space on the third floor of the Tartu Art Museum from 11 July to 25 October 2026.

Kaisa Maasik (b. 1994) is an artist and curator based in Tallinn. She graduated from the Contemporary Art Programme at the Estonian Academy of Arts (MA, 2021) and from the Photography Department (BA, 2017). In 2019, she furthered her studies at the Academy of Fine Arts of the University of the Arts Helsinki in the Praxis curatorial master’s programme. Collaboration plays an important role in Maasik’s practice; she works both collectively and independently on projects that often take the form of spatial artworks. She focuses on the feelings and experiences of people she encounters, seeking to convey their stories through objects and memories. Collecting is central to Maasik’s methodology, drawing primarily on everyday life. She was a member of the Umbrella Group (2016–2017) and has been involved in the organising teams of the project space Vent Space (2018–2019) and the Tallinn Photomonth Biennial (2017 and 2019). In 2020, Maasik was awarded the Wiiralt Scholarship. In spring 2021, she participated in the FAIR residency at FABRIKKEN in Copenhagen. Maasik has been a member of the Estonian Union of Photography Artists since 2021 and of the Estonian Artists’ Association since 2022.

Artist: Kaisa Maasik
Curator: Stella Mõttus
Graphic designer: Kersti Heile
Supporters: Estonian Cultural Endowment, Ledzep OÜ
Exhibition team: Indrek Grigor, Joanna Hoffmann, Rene Kriisa, Katariina Leets, Katrin Lõoke, Anti Saar, Peeter Talvistu
Video clip credits: Arvi Anderson, Jana Arendi, Katariina Aule, Andrus Avarand, Yvette Bathgate, Marleen Eino, Alexei Gordin, Yiheng Gu, Viktor Gurov, Liisa-Lota Jõeleht, Erik Jürmann, Pirke Kaljula, Piret Klea-Velleste, Karel Koplimets, Nele Kurvits, Epp Kuslap, Kadri Lind, Maria Luiga, Mariel Luuk, Heiki Maasik, Katariin Mudist, Stella Mõttus, Reigo Nahksepp, Urmet Piiling, Evelyn Raudsepp, Mari-Liis Rebane, Yiyang Sun, Maryliis Teinfeldt-Grins, Annika Toots, Tõnu Tunnel, Simona Tätte, Lotte Ugandi, Ruudu Ulas, Pille-Riin Valk, Eliisabet Valmas, Sten Vendik, Helen Västrik

The duo exhibition “Something That Should Be Felt” by artists Hilla Kurki & Taavi Rekkaro opened at the FOKU Gallery.

In the exhibition, the artists engage in a shared exploration about memory, personal history, touch, and how we relate to images. Both artists are searching for new ways within their practices, moving perhaps towards a greater spatiality and material presence. Together, the works create a dialogue between distance and intimacy, presence and remembrance.

In the series Clay Diaries, Hilla Kurki approaches memory through her family’s history, seeking alternative modes of relating with tradition and heritage. In Kurki’s images human form is shown together with plants and creatures, things that are reborn every season seemingly unchanged. By inviting a range of fellow artists to visit her great-grandparents’ house she creates a living archive through shared moments where friendship can become the main outcome of the work, not just its subject.

Taavi Rekkaro presents photos and objects that rethink photography as something to be touched, where closeness becomes part of the experience. The images capture fleeting moments, inner uncertainties, and attempts to understand oneself and one’s relationships with others. Exploring the connections between memory, body and self-perception, the artist asks: how can we be sure that we were truly there, that these moments really happened? On the gallery wall unfolds a melting moment composed of works created since 2023. Rather than telling a single, fixed story, the works invite viewers to slow down and build their own narratives.

The exhibition will remain open until 26 September 2026.

Hilla Kurki (FI, b. 1985) has exhibited in various international venues and art fairs since 2016. Her first book Almost All the Flowers in My Mother’s Garden was published in 2022 (Khaos Publishing), and has two sold out editions. Exhibition adaptations of the book have been shown recently in for example the Institut finlandais in Paris, Foto Arsenal Wien and in the Centre de la Photographie Genève. Kurki was one of the headliners of the Copenhagen Photo Festival in 2023. Her work was selected for Elles X Paris Photo in 2018, showcasing the history and future of female photographers. She was awarded the Still Life Prize in the 34th edition of Festival d´Hyeres in 2019. She is a part of the FUTURES Photography Platform.
Kurki has graduated with a Master’s in Art from the Aalto University School of Art, Design and Architecture in 2018. She lives and works in Helsinki, Finland.
https://www.hillakurki.com/

Taavi Rekkaro (EE, b. 1988) is a mixed media artist whose work reflects an intuitive dialogue between visual art and photography. Combining images with physical materials, he seeks to capture the energy of fleeting moments, blurring the lines between memory and self-discovery. Rekkaro has shown his work internationally both at exhibitions and artfairs, and his work has been published in international publications.
https://taavirekkaro.com/

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, Finnish Cultural Foundation’s Kymeenlaakso regional fund, Artproof

Opening drinks provided by:
Nudist Drinks, Põhjala Brewery

Technical support:
Karmo Migur, Paul Kobert

Calligraphy:
Adèle Zabé

Thank you:
Albane, Alexis, Anne, Artproof team, Celine, Daniel, EKA Gallery, Elio, Ferdinand, Hikari, Hubert, Jack, Joosep, Kaisa Maasik, Margot, Mari-Leen Kiipli, Olari, Olivia, Oscar, Raphaël, Rasmus, Risako, Sheung, Thomas, Tor, Valter, Viivi, Woosung

FOKU Gallery
Väike-Karja 10, Tallinn
Thu–Sat 12–18
Free entrance

Karl Joonas Alamaa & Cian-Ti Wang
Near enough 
02.08–30.08 @ KESKPUUR

Bringing together two artists from different cultural backgrounds, the exhibition is united by a shared interest in themes of home, departure, memory, and hope. For Taiwanese artist Cian-Ti Wang, this marks the first exhibition in Estonia. The practices of Alamaa and Wang converge around questions of belonging, memory, movement, everyday experience, and the ways in which people create and sustain connections with places, objects, and one another.

At the heart of the exhibition are shared and personal spaces, places where people’s paths intersect and where habits, relationships, and memories take shape. These can be environments that carry both individual and collective stories. 

The exhibition explores how memory and belonging continually move between the personal, the shared, and the institutional. Rather than treating them as fixed or clearly defined conditions, it presents memory as an ongoing process of transformation, asking how we carry places with us and how those places, in turn, shape our understanding of where, and with whom, we belong.
…

Cian-Ti Wang’s artistic practice explores food, eating, and familiar objects as ways through which people form connections with home, identity, and one another. Their work intertwines personal experiences with broader social questions, addressing language, religion, history, and social relationships. Wang frequently employs familiar objects, environments, and ritual forms to create installation-based and performative situations that invite viewers into a multilayered emotional landscape. Living in Belgium while originating from Taiwan, their practice is often informed by questions of longing and the search for community.

Karl Joonas Alamaa’s (he/they) practice explores the intersections of personal memory and public space, examining the relationships between power, history, and the individual. He is interested in how people carry memories, everyday traces, and personal meanings with them, and how public spaces and ideologically charged environments shape our understanding of belonging and home. His works weave together intimate and collective perspectives, drawing attention to the threshold between the visible and the overlooked.

04.07-26.07 @ Keskpuur

The opening of LMEO artist duo’s first international exhibition will take place on July 4 at 13:00.
Drinks for the opening will be provided by Tuletorn & Vaat.

Keskpuur is pleased to announce Everything is Just Something to Get Through – the first international exhibition by the artist duo LMEO. Originally from Montréal and now based in Tallinn, LMEO brings together their individual practices through a collaborative approach rooted in sculpture, installation, and performance.

As temporary residents in Estonia, the artists have developed the exhibition through the observant gaze of newcomers. This exhibition challenges concepts of spectatorship and its relation to urban systems, drawing attention to the ways public infrastructures can function [or can be understood] as choreography.

The exhibition evokes a feeling of displacement or loneliness that blends into the anonymity of public space. Through flickering lights, industrial assemblages, and images of the mundane, Everything is Just Something to Get Through reflects on the banal structures that shape contemporary life and reimagines them as theatrical settings. LMEO invites viewers to encounter these environments with the heightened awareness of a visitor or outsider, while considering how spiritual presence and emotional connection might inhabit ordinary spaces as a means of communicating across distance and coping with grief and loss.

…

Lili Maud Dobell and Éric-Olivier Thériault have worked collaboratively since October 2022, after meeting while completing their BFAs at NSCAD University. After establishing an alternative gallery space in Halifax, Canada, the artists moved to Estonia to pursue graduate studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts in the Contemporary Art MA programme. The pair uses collaboration as a meeting ground for a shared artistic vision, resisting singular authorship.

The acronym LMEO stands for “Laughing My Ears Off” while also referencing the initials of their first names.

Both artists specialize in sculptural practices that invite or consider bodily interaction with materials. Their collaborative practice speaks in a tone they describe as “pathetic poetry”. Through their durational works, they coined the term Proof of Performance to describe the sculptural act of making through being.

Central to the pair’s joint practice is the gathering and assemblage of found objects, reflecting a commitment to a sustainable artistic language that considers the relevance and utility of the readymade within a context of climate and socio-political crisis. As a result, the seemingly mundane spaces where the reflection and the non-doing aspects of a sculptural practice are activated become the subject for the artwork itself.

Lili Maud and Éric-Olivier are currently developing Cycles, a performance piece that will be shown at the 61st Venice Biennale under the pavilion umbrella of Merike Estna’s House of Leaking Sky.