Exhibitions
05.09.2025 — 31.10.2025
Gardens: Tanja Muravskaja and Light
Gardens: Tanja Muravskaja and Light
05.09 – 31.10.2025
Open:
Wed–Sat 13:00–19:00
Free entrance
Limited wheelchair access
Public Programme:
13.09, 14:00 Guided tour (in Estonian)
20.09, 14:00 Artist talk (in Estonian)
The exhibition is part of the main programme of the 8th Tallinn Photomonth
Tanja Muravskaja’s new work Gardens explores the boundaries between reality and image, as she gives the organic and living a fixed form, materialised through photography. Working with water as a real (source) material serves as a strategy for slowing down and so offering a counterpoint to the automated visual flows of the digital age. The individual photographs in the series are not mere visual images but events captured at the moment of their occurrence, when light and time turn into physical matter.
The display immerses the viewer in an experience of phenomenological presence, as their attention moves from recognition of the form to the sensual and sensory perception of the material. The series is an invite for “slow contemplation”, through which it explores the liminal areas between the visible and the invisible before guiding the viewer back to a
heightened state of physical presence and perception of the world.
The project was born from professional memory and developed into an independent statement on the intersection of institutional conditions, architecture and the artist’s perspective. All the photographs in the exhibition were printed by the artist herself, a process that allowed her to take full control of the paper’s nuances of texture and colour while also becoming an inherent extension of the artist’s observations and their results captured on camera.
Tanja Muravskaja (b. 1978 in Pärnu, lives and works in Tallinn) is an esteemed Estonian artist whose work focuses on questions of identity, collective and personal memory, and social boundaries.
Muravskaja graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a BA and, later, a Master’s in photography. She also studied photography at the University of Westminster in London, where she spent an exchange year. Her analytical and psychological approach sheds light on themes related to internal tensions and a sense of belonging, both on an individual and a social level.
Muravskaja’s works – including her principal photographic series Positions, Estonian Race, They Who Sang Together, Self-portrait with the Estonian Flag and various video works – are part of the collections of the Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum and multiple private collections, reflecting the significant place she has in Estonian art history. She has had solo exhibitions at Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm), WIELS (Brussels) and Tartu Art Museum. She has also participated in various international exhibitions, including at EMST at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens), MOCAK (Kraków), the Art Encounters Biennial (Timișoara), the GIBCA Biennial (Gothenburg), Ludwig Museum (Budapest), MACRO (Rome), and Kiasma (Helsinki). She has received various accolades, including the Köler Prize Grand Prix (2018) and the Order of the White Star, 5th class, bestowed by the President of the Republic of Estonia (2019).
Exhibition designer: Jevgeni Zolotko Consultant: Elnara Taidre
Installation: Mihkel Lember
Graphic designer: Kert Viiart-Õllek
Thanks to:
Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian Artists’ Association, Hedi Jaansoo, Kai Art Center, Laur Kivistik, Anna Loginov, Vladimir Loginov, Taavi Rekkaro, Sirje Runge, Mėta Valiušaitytė, Ellington Printing & Production, Veiko Illiste
Gardens: Tanja Muravskaja and Light
Friday 05 September, 2025 — Friday 31 October, 2025
Gardens: Tanja Muravskaja and Light
05.09 – 31.10.2025
Open:
Wed–Sat 13:00–19:00
Free entrance
Limited wheelchair access
Public Programme:
13.09, 14:00 Guided tour (in Estonian)
20.09, 14:00 Artist talk (in Estonian)
The exhibition is part of the main programme of the 8th Tallinn Photomonth
Tanja Muravskaja’s new work Gardens explores the boundaries between reality and image, as she gives the organic and living a fixed form, materialised through photography. Working with water as a real (source) material serves as a strategy for slowing down and so offering a counterpoint to the automated visual flows of the digital age. The individual photographs in the series are not mere visual images but events captured at the moment of their occurrence, when light and time turn into physical matter.
The display immerses the viewer in an experience of phenomenological presence, as their attention moves from recognition of the form to the sensual and sensory perception of the material. The series is an invite for “slow contemplation”, through which it explores the liminal areas between the visible and the invisible before guiding the viewer back to a
heightened state of physical presence and perception of the world.
The project was born from professional memory and developed into an independent statement on the intersection of institutional conditions, architecture and the artist’s perspective. All the photographs in the exhibition were printed by the artist herself, a process that allowed her to take full control of the paper’s nuances of texture and colour while also becoming an inherent extension of the artist’s observations and their results captured on camera.
Tanja Muravskaja (b. 1978 in Pärnu, lives and works in Tallinn) is an esteemed Estonian artist whose work focuses on questions of identity, collective and personal memory, and social boundaries.
Muravskaja graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a BA and, later, a Master’s in photography. She also studied photography at the University of Westminster in London, where she spent an exchange year. Her analytical and psychological approach sheds light on themes related to internal tensions and a sense of belonging, both on an individual and a social level.
Muravskaja’s works – including her principal photographic series Positions, Estonian Race, They Who Sang Together, Self-portrait with the Estonian Flag and various video works – are part of the collections of the Art Museum of Estonia, Tartu Art Museum and multiple private collections, reflecting the significant place she has in Estonian art history. She has had solo exhibitions at Tensta Konsthall (Stockholm), WIELS (Brussels) and Tartu Art Museum. She has also participated in various international exhibitions, including at EMST at the National Museum of Contemporary Art (Athens), MOCAK (Kraków), the Art Encounters Biennial (Timișoara), the GIBCA Biennial (Gothenburg), Ludwig Museum (Budapest), MACRO (Rome), and Kiasma (Helsinki). She has received various accolades, including the Köler Prize Grand Prix (2018) and the Order of the White Star, 5th class, bestowed by the President of the Republic of Estonia (2019).
Exhibition designer: Jevgeni Zolotko Consultant: Elnara Taidre
Installation: Mihkel Lember
Graphic designer: Kert Viiart-Õllek
Thanks to:
Estonian Academy of Arts, Estonian Artists’ Association, Hedi Jaansoo, Kai Art Center, Laur Kivistik, Anna Loginov, Vladimir Loginov, Taavi Rekkaro, Sirje Runge, Mėta Valiušaitytė, Ellington Printing & Production, Veiko Illiste
03.10.2025 — 11.11.2025
Maria Kapajeva “By Losing Them, I Become a Whole”
Curated by Šelda Puķīte
3.10.2025 — 22.11.2025
OPENING
3 October at 18.00
Performance by лäбипõленуд (laebipoelenud). Read more below
CALL TO PARTICIPATE
Maria Kapajeva engages with women with BRCA1/2 mutations or breast cancer and will host a queer community gathering to expand her two new works. Read more below
To this day, a woman’s body – its pain, illness and lived experience – is often treated as other, constrained by rigid gender norms and medical bias. Rather than embracing the complexity of womanhood, society continues to mystify and objectify women, reducing them to narrowly defined roles. In her solo exhibition By Losing Them, I Become a Whole*, Maria Kapajeva draws on her recent physical transformation and ongoing healing process to explore identity politics, womanhood and queer embodiment. It marks the first chapter of a new body of work – one that begins in loss but unfolds through tenderness, resilience and radical self-connection.
Kapajeva inherited the same genetic risk as her late grandmother, who died of cancer at the age of 49 – the same age the artist will reach later this year. As a result, she underwent two preventive surgeries: an oophorectomy and a mastectomy. With the removal of body parts so often defined by patriarchal society as essential to womanhood, she now navigates questions about how these changes might empower her identity as a queer woman – and whether these deeply personal interventions have granted her the chance at a longer life, a future once denied to her grandmother.
Known for working with image culture, photography and video – often incorporating crafts and elements from public and domestic spheres – Kapajeva explores her journey through a range of media. In the photographic series A Portrait of a Woman, she stages a visual narrative of transformation and embodied change, offering a farewell to her menstrual cycle. This is echoed in the video work Period. Period, which signifies the end of her reproductive stage. The healing process – marked by the management of bodily fluids and intimate, repetitive procedures – is also part of this exploration. The journey culminates in a fearless portrait of her post-surgery body, referencing Sarah Lucas’ Self Portrait with Fried Eggs (1996), though here, the eggs remain on the plate.
Before surgery, Kapajeva created a series of images, prints and casts of her breasts – leaving behind emotional imprints of what once was. In the series Parts of Me, Not, scanned images of her breasts are abstracted into a space where they exist independently from the body. In another gesture, she prints their forms onto limited-edition T-shirts, offering others the symbolic opportunity to wear them. Reimagined as form-filling entities, the breasts are also cast in clay as hanging bell-shaped sculptures titled The Transformation of Silence. The fleshy materiality and earthy tones of the clay, combined with the bell’s function as a ringing object, give these forms a voice – capable of breaking silence, drawing attention or sounding an alarm. The installation will later continue to evolve, incorporating casts made in collaboration with other women, forming a growing archive of diverse bodies and voices.
Another installation, My fears were the fears of us all**, composed of found and ready-made materials, features paired seashells that evoke ovaries, breast shells or protective armour. Once natural shields for soft bodies, these shells now sit on a reflective surface, expanding the imagery and incorporating reflections from the space and viewer. The piece is anchored by a raw tree stump, stripped of its bark. This contrast – between hollow shells and exposed wood – captures the tension between vulnerability and defence, echoing the emotional landscape Kapajeva explores.
The large-scale textile work Golden Becoming comes closest to evoking a sense of sacred transformation. Its surface is imprinted in gold with the whole body – past and present – merged into a single form, reminiscent of the Shroud of Turin. It becomes a symbolic site of rebirth, where what once was is allowed to evolve into what may become. Over time, the textile will be embroidered with the stories and experiences of other queer people, gradually transforming a solitary imprint into a collective archive – an expanding tapestry of shared memory, resilience and identity.
Working across photography, video, textiles, ceramics and found objects, the exhibition is at once a case study, a therapeutic process, a tribute to Kapajeva’s grandmother, a farewell to her breasts and ovaries, and an ode to the body she now inhabits. By weaving together physical, visceral and psychological experiences, the artist has created a roadmap for navigating a transitional state of being – learning to mourn, care for and celebrate the body’s evolving form. What begins as a profoundly intimate story opens into a collective experience – one that looks toward a future filled with diverse voices and bodies, sharing stories, raising awareness, and celebrating new ways of being and becoming.
* A reference to Ocean Vuong’s poem Beautiful Short Loser, 2022
** A quotation from Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, 1980
The exhibition is part of the satellite programme of Tallinn Photomonth 2025 and serves as Kogo Gallery’s final show of the year, presented under the programme Thrifters and Transformers.
PERFORMANCE
By лäбипõленуд (laebipoelenud) on 3 October at 18.00 at the opening
лäбипõленуд (laebipoelenud) is a memory, a state and movement that binds and tears all voices out of itself to survive in this harsh painful landscape that does not embrace those like us. The inner fire has gone out, only the core remains, it crawls, wails and searches, hunger for life is still within. By channeling rage and apathy in the bodies, we have finally reached the violence that forces us to listen, to bodies that are erased.
CALL TO PARTICIPATE
Artist Maria Kapajeva warmly invites women diagnosed with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation or breast cancer to participate in an extended edition of sculpture The Transformation of Silence by including their breast casts into a growing archive of diverse bodies and voices. To make your own cast and learn more, please contact the artist at kapajeva@yahoo.com or the gallery.
During the exhibition period, Maria Kapajeva will also host a community gathering for queer people to collectively contribute to her large-scale textile work Golden Becoming.
BIOS
Maria Kapajeva (she/her, b. 1976) is an artist whose practice explores questions of identity and gender, often focusing on people in states of transition. She works with found and vernacular photographic images, video installations, textile and embroidery, and participatory practices. Working between the UK and Estonia, she exhibits her work internationally. Kapajeva has received numerous awards, including the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s Annual Award (2025), the Eduard Wiiralt Scholarship (2023) and the Kraszna-Krausz Photo Book Award (2021).
Kapajeva’s works are held in several collections, including the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tartu Art Museum. She is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts and works as a project manager for Fast Forward: Women in Photography at UCA, UK.
Šelda Puķīte (b. 1986) is a Latvian curator, writer and researcher based in Estonia. Her formal education includes a Master’s and a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Art History and Theory at the Art Academy of Latvia. She has worked on several international exhibitions, curated stands for art fairs including Liste Art Fair Basel, viennacontemporary and Art Brussels, published art albums, created catalogues for contemporary art festivals Survival Kit and Riga Photography Biennial, as well as written several essays for Baltic culture publications. Her most recent curated exhibitions include Paweł Matyszewski’s solo exhibition Momentary Organisms (2025) at Kogo Gallery, Tartu, Silver Girls. Retouched History of Baltic Photography (2025) together with Agnė Narušytė and Indrek Grigor at National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, and White Dwarfs and All Those Beautiful Nebulas (2024) at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga. Since 2020, she works at Kogo Gallery as an international project manager and exhibition programme curator.
TEAM
Artist: Maria Kapajeva
Curator: Šelda Puķīte
Production: Stella Mõttus
Communication: Karin Kahre, Stella Mõttus
Installation: Peeter Talvistu
Photos: Nele Tammeaid (opening)
Text: Šelda Puķīte
Graphic design: Maris Põrk
Translation and editing: Refiner Translations
FUNDING AND SUPPORT
The exhibition is funded by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the City of Tartu.
The artist thanks Artproof, Eva Mahhov, Vivek Jain, Mihkel Säre, Anne Eelmere, Nadja Tjuška and лäбипõленуд, gallery team and funders
Maria Kapajeva “By Losing Them, I Become a Whole”
Friday 03 October, 2025 — Tuesday 11 November, 2025
Curated by Šelda Puķīte
3.10.2025 — 22.11.2025
OPENING
3 October at 18.00
Performance by лäбипõленуд (laebipoelenud). Read more below
CALL TO PARTICIPATE
Maria Kapajeva engages with women with BRCA1/2 mutations or breast cancer and will host a queer community gathering to expand her two new works. Read more below
To this day, a woman’s body – its pain, illness and lived experience – is often treated as other, constrained by rigid gender norms and medical bias. Rather than embracing the complexity of womanhood, society continues to mystify and objectify women, reducing them to narrowly defined roles. In her solo exhibition By Losing Them, I Become a Whole*, Maria Kapajeva draws on her recent physical transformation and ongoing healing process to explore identity politics, womanhood and queer embodiment. It marks the first chapter of a new body of work – one that begins in loss but unfolds through tenderness, resilience and radical self-connection.
Kapajeva inherited the same genetic risk as her late grandmother, who died of cancer at the age of 49 – the same age the artist will reach later this year. As a result, she underwent two preventive surgeries: an oophorectomy and a mastectomy. With the removal of body parts so often defined by patriarchal society as essential to womanhood, she now navigates questions about how these changes might empower her identity as a queer woman – and whether these deeply personal interventions have granted her the chance at a longer life, a future once denied to her grandmother.
Known for working with image culture, photography and video – often incorporating crafts and elements from public and domestic spheres – Kapajeva explores her journey through a range of media. In the photographic series A Portrait of a Woman, she stages a visual narrative of transformation and embodied change, offering a farewell to her menstrual cycle. This is echoed in the video work Period. Period, which signifies the end of her reproductive stage. The healing process – marked by the management of bodily fluids and intimate, repetitive procedures – is also part of this exploration. The journey culminates in a fearless portrait of her post-surgery body, referencing Sarah Lucas’ Self Portrait with Fried Eggs (1996), though here, the eggs remain on the plate.
Before surgery, Kapajeva created a series of images, prints and casts of her breasts – leaving behind emotional imprints of what once was. In the series Parts of Me, Not, scanned images of her breasts are abstracted into a space where they exist independently from the body. In another gesture, she prints their forms onto limited-edition T-shirts, offering others the symbolic opportunity to wear them. Reimagined as form-filling entities, the breasts are also cast in clay as hanging bell-shaped sculptures titled The Transformation of Silence. The fleshy materiality and earthy tones of the clay, combined with the bell’s function as a ringing object, give these forms a voice – capable of breaking silence, drawing attention or sounding an alarm. The installation will later continue to evolve, incorporating casts made in collaboration with other women, forming a growing archive of diverse bodies and voices.
Another installation, My fears were the fears of us all**, composed of found and ready-made materials, features paired seashells that evoke ovaries, breast shells or protective armour. Once natural shields for soft bodies, these shells now sit on a reflective surface, expanding the imagery and incorporating reflections from the space and viewer. The piece is anchored by a raw tree stump, stripped of its bark. This contrast – between hollow shells and exposed wood – captures the tension between vulnerability and defence, echoing the emotional landscape Kapajeva explores.
The large-scale textile work Golden Becoming comes closest to evoking a sense of sacred transformation. Its surface is imprinted in gold with the whole body – past and present – merged into a single form, reminiscent of the Shroud of Turin. It becomes a symbolic site of rebirth, where what once was is allowed to evolve into what may become. Over time, the textile will be embroidered with the stories and experiences of other queer people, gradually transforming a solitary imprint into a collective archive – an expanding tapestry of shared memory, resilience and identity.
Working across photography, video, textiles, ceramics and found objects, the exhibition is at once a case study, a therapeutic process, a tribute to Kapajeva’s grandmother, a farewell to her breasts and ovaries, and an ode to the body she now inhabits. By weaving together physical, visceral and psychological experiences, the artist has created a roadmap for navigating a transitional state of being – learning to mourn, care for and celebrate the body’s evolving form. What begins as a profoundly intimate story opens into a collective experience – one that looks toward a future filled with diverse voices and bodies, sharing stories, raising awareness, and celebrating new ways of being and becoming.
* A reference to Ocean Vuong’s poem Beautiful Short Loser, 2022
** A quotation from Audre Lorde’s The Cancer Journals, 1980
The exhibition is part of the satellite programme of Tallinn Photomonth 2025 and serves as Kogo Gallery’s final show of the year, presented under the programme Thrifters and Transformers.
PERFORMANCE
By лäбипõленуд (laebipoelenud) on 3 October at 18.00 at the opening
лäбипõленуд (laebipoelenud) is a memory, a state and movement that binds and tears all voices out of itself to survive in this harsh painful landscape that does not embrace those like us. The inner fire has gone out, only the core remains, it crawls, wails and searches, hunger for life is still within. By channeling rage and apathy in the bodies, we have finally reached the violence that forces us to listen, to bodies that are erased.
CALL TO PARTICIPATE
Artist Maria Kapajeva warmly invites women diagnosed with BRCA1 and BRCA2 gene mutation or breast cancer to participate in an extended edition of sculpture The Transformation of Silence by including their breast casts into a growing archive of diverse bodies and voices. To make your own cast and learn more, please contact the artist at kapajeva@yahoo.com or the gallery.
During the exhibition period, Maria Kapajeva will also host a community gathering for queer people to collectively contribute to her large-scale textile work Golden Becoming.
BIOS
Maria Kapajeva (she/her, b. 1976) is an artist whose practice explores questions of identity and gender, often focusing on people in states of transition. She works with found and vernacular photographic images, video installations, textile and embroidery, and participatory practices. Working between the UK and Estonia, she exhibits her work internationally. Kapajeva has received numerous awards, including the Estonian Cultural Endowment’s Annual Award (2025), the Eduard Wiiralt Scholarship (2023) and the Kraszna-Krausz Photo Book Award (2021).
Kapajeva’s works are held in several collections, including the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tartu Art Museum. She is currently pursuing a practice-based PhD at the Estonian Academy of Arts and works as a project manager for Fast Forward: Women in Photography at UCA, UK.
Šelda Puķīte (b. 1986) is a Latvian curator, writer and researcher based in Estonia. Her formal education includes a Master’s and a Bachelor’s degree from the Department of Art History and Theory at the Art Academy of Latvia. She has worked on several international exhibitions, curated stands for art fairs including Liste Art Fair Basel, viennacontemporary and Art Brussels, published art albums, created catalogues for contemporary art festivals Survival Kit and Riga Photography Biennial, as well as written several essays for Baltic culture publications. Her most recent curated exhibitions include Paweł Matyszewski’s solo exhibition Momentary Organisms (2025) at Kogo Gallery, Tartu, Silver Girls. Retouched History of Baltic Photography (2025) together with Agnė Narušytė and Indrek Grigor at National Gallery of Art, Vilnius, and White Dwarfs and All Those Beautiful Nebulas (2024) at Kim? Contemporary Art Centre, Riga. Since 2020, she works at Kogo Gallery as an international project manager and exhibition programme curator.
TEAM
Artist: Maria Kapajeva
Curator: Šelda Puķīte
Production: Stella Mõttus
Communication: Karin Kahre, Stella Mõttus
Installation: Peeter Talvistu
Photos: Nele Tammeaid (opening)
Text: Šelda Puķīte
Graphic design: Maris Põrk
Translation and editing: Refiner Translations
FUNDING AND SUPPORT
The exhibition is funded by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and the City of Tartu.
The artist thanks Artproof, Eva Mahhov, Vivek Jain, Mihkel Säre, Anne Eelmere, Nadja Tjuška and лäбипõленуд, gallery team and funders
05.10.2025 — 02.11.2025
Group Exhibition “Joy and Rage” at Haapsalu City Gallery
JOY AND RAGE
Maris Karjatse, Sandra Ernits, Mirjam Varik, Kristiina Aarna, Annika Haas
Haapsalu City Gallery
5.10.–02.11.2025
Open Wed–Sun 12–18
Opening: Sun, 5 October at 14:00
The artists explore motherhood through personal experiences, social tensions, and bodily/memory practices. They share a desire to shift traditional representations of motherhood by highlighting complexity, ambivalence, and invisible experiences. These works do not approach motherhood in an idealized way but instead create space for ambivalence, corporeality, memory, mental and physical strain, pain, loss and the invisible care work that often accompanies the role of a mother. Drawing from both personal and collective experiences, the artists engage with themes such as grief, loss, dependence, recovery, and shifts in identity. In this context, being a mother is not merely a biological condition, but a social, emotional, and linguistic structure – one in which and against which the artists position themselves. The installations, photographs, videos, and sculptures exhibited here address, among other topics, postpartum depression, body memory, mother’s illness, experiences of poverty, homosexual parenthood, and family dynamics that fall outside normative frameworks.
Curator: Annika Haas
Graphic design: Mirjam Varik
Supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment
Group Exhibition “Joy and Rage” at Haapsalu City Gallery
Sunday 05 October, 2025 — Sunday 02 November, 2025
JOY AND RAGE
Maris Karjatse, Sandra Ernits, Mirjam Varik, Kristiina Aarna, Annika Haas
Haapsalu City Gallery
5.10.–02.11.2025
Open Wed–Sun 12–18
Opening: Sun, 5 October at 14:00
The artists explore motherhood through personal experiences, social tensions, and bodily/memory practices. They share a desire to shift traditional representations of motherhood by highlighting complexity, ambivalence, and invisible experiences. These works do not approach motherhood in an idealized way but instead create space for ambivalence, corporeality, memory, mental and physical strain, pain, loss and the invisible care work that often accompanies the role of a mother. Drawing from both personal and collective experiences, the artists engage with themes such as grief, loss, dependence, recovery, and shifts in identity. In this context, being a mother is not merely a biological condition, but a social, emotional, and linguistic structure – one in which and against which the artists position themselves. The installations, photographs, videos, and sculptures exhibited here address, among other topics, postpartum depression, body memory, mother’s illness, experiences of poverty, homosexual parenthood, and family dynamics that fall outside normative frameworks.
Curator: Annika Haas
Graphic design: Mirjam Varik
Supported by the Estonian Cultural Endowment
02.10.2025
Book Presentation & Discussion: And Then It Fades (Away)
As part of Tallinn Photomonth, FOKU gallery hosts the presentation of And Then It Fades (Away), a new bilingual (Lithuanian-English) book on contemporary Lithuanian photography. The publication brings together twelve artists whose works explore themes from placelessness and archives to instability and identity, weaving personal, cultural, and ecological narratives into a vivid map of the present.
Editors Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė and Paulius Petraitis will discuss the book with moderator Annika Toots, touching on its themes as well as broader questions of contemporary photography. Published by Six Chairs Books, the volume highlights photography as a medium of inquiry and experimentation.
The presentation will be preceded by an introduction of the new MA in Photography programme at Vilnius Academy of Arts, Kaunas Faculty. MA in Photography is a unique programme in the Baltic states, dedicated to exploring photography as a critical, experimental practice that responds to and questions contemporary realities.
The presentation and discussion will be held in English.
Book Presentation & Discussion: And Then It Fades (Away)
Thursday 02 October, 2025
As part of Tallinn Photomonth, FOKU gallery hosts the presentation of And Then It Fades (Away), a new bilingual (Lithuanian-English) book on contemporary Lithuanian photography. The publication brings together twelve artists whose works explore themes from placelessness and archives to instability and identity, weaving personal, cultural, and ecological narratives into a vivid map of the present.
Editors Geistė Marija Kinčinaitytė and Paulius Petraitis will discuss the book with moderator Annika Toots, touching on its themes as well as broader questions of contemporary photography. Published by Six Chairs Books, the volume highlights photography as a medium of inquiry and experimentation.
The presentation will be preceded by an introduction of the new MA in Photography programme at Vilnius Academy of Arts, Kaunas Faculty. MA in Photography is a unique programme in the Baltic states, dedicated to exploring photography as a critical, experimental practice that responds to and questions contemporary realities.
The presentation and discussion will be held in English.
29.09.2025
New visions in Slovak and Estonian architecture
New Visions in Slovak and Estonian Architecture: Exhibition and Discussion
Under the leadership of Sille Pihlak, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, a discussion with a group of Slovak architects will be held on the contemporary development and visions of Slovak and Estonian architecture.
At the same time, we will also open the landscape/nature/architecture exhibition of students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.
The exhibition and event are organized by The Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Helsinki.
All interested parties are welcome!
New visions in Slovak and Estonian architecture
Monday 29 September, 2025
New Visions in Slovak and Estonian Architecture: Exhibition and Discussion
Under the leadership of Sille Pihlak, Dean of the Faculty of Architecture, a discussion with a group of Slovak architects will be held on the contemporary development and visions of Slovak and Estonian architecture.
At the same time, we will also open the landscape/nature/architecture exhibition of students of the Academy of Fine Arts and Design in Bratislava.
The exhibition and event are organized by The Embassy of the Slovak Republic in Helsinki.
All interested parties are welcome!
29.09.2025 — 05.10.2025
UPMADE® in Kenya: DiMa + EKA Circular Design
On 29 September, as part of the Design Night festival, the exhibition “UPMADE® in Kenya: DiMa + EKA Circular Design” will open in the Krulli quarter, showcasing creative works made from the textile offcuts of a Kenyan factory.
The exhibition is free to attend, with the opening on Monday 29.09 at 18:30 at The Machine Shop I, Krulli quarter. Regular opening hours Tuesday–Saturday 11:00–20:00 and Sunday 11:00–18:00 (29.09-05.10.2025).
The textile industry is one of the world’s most environmentally impactful sectors – it consumes vast amounts of raw materials and energy and generates large volumes of waste. In Kenya, where the industry is rapidly growing, sustainability principles have not yet been systematically implemented.
At the Rivatex textile factory in Eldoret, Kenya, the Estonian science- and design-based UPMADE® model—built on value-adding recycling, or upcycling—was taught and applied in collaboration with students from the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA). The goal was to reduce the environmental footprint of production, develop skills, and help bring the local industry in line with circular-economy principles and climate targets.
From the factory’s textile remnants, the students designed clothing, accessories, lamps, sunshades and a variety of other objects. The exhibition presents the creative work of EKA circular-design master’s students who participated in the initiative during 2024–2025: Doreen Mägi, Eva Liis Lidenburg, Kaisa Ilves, Lisandra Türkson, Maria Rojiko Nisu, Mariann Hendrikson, Marit Saare, Mart Maide, Marta Konovalov, Merily Mikiver and Eva Reiska. The students were supervised by Reet Aus, Maria Pukk and Lisandra Türkson.
The EKA x T4EU podcast episode “Rethinking Fashion Waste” is available HERE. Designer and researcher Reet Aus shares insights on rethinking fashion waste in a discussion led by Anna Lohmatova, exploring the UPMADE® model in Kenya and the impact of EU sustainability regulations on the textile sector.
The exhibition is part of the project “Transferring UPMADE Expertise to Kenya,” led by EKA’s Sustainable Design and Materials Laboratory (DiMa). The project was carried out in cooperation with the Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre (SEI Tallinn) and Moi University, funded by the Estonian Ministry of Climate’s international climate-cooperation programme, with student mobility supported by the EU Erasmus+ programme.
Running from 29 September to 5 October, Design Night features many other EKA initiatives. The satellite programme includes EKA Design Week and a fashion artists’ exhibition, and EKA students will also take part in the joint display of Estonian design schools. The festival’s opening performance, “Inclusion Is Action,” is organised by EKA lecturer Reet Aus.
The full Design Night programme can be found here.
UPMADE® in Kenya: DiMa + EKA Circular Design
Monday 29 September, 2025 — Sunday 05 October, 2025
On 29 September, as part of the Design Night festival, the exhibition “UPMADE® in Kenya: DiMa + EKA Circular Design” will open in the Krulli quarter, showcasing creative works made from the textile offcuts of a Kenyan factory.
The exhibition is free to attend, with the opening on Monday 29.09 at 18:30 at The Machine Shop I, Krulli quarter. Regular opening hours Tuesday–Saturday 11:00–20:00 and Sunday 11:00–18:00 (29.09-05.10.2025).
The textile industry is one of the world’s most environmentally impactful sectors – it consumes vast amounts of raw materials and energy and generates large volumes of waste. In Kenya, where the industry is rapidly growing, sustainability principles have not yet been systematically implemented.
At the Rivatex textile factory in Eldoret, Kenya, the Estonian science- and design-based UPMADE® model—built on value-adding recycling, or upcycling—was taught and applied in collaboration with students from the Estonian Academy of Arts (EKA). The goal was to reduce the environmental footprint of production, develop skills, and help bring the local industry in line with circular-economy principles and climate targets.
From the factory’s textile remnants, the students designed clothing, accessories, lamps, sunshades and a variety of other objects. The exhibition presents the creative work of EKA circular-design master’s students who participated in the initiative during 2024–2025: Doreen Mägi, Eva Liis Lidenburg, Kaisa Ilves, Lisandra Türkson, Maria Rojiko Nisu, Mariann Hendrikson, Marit Saare, Mart Maide, Marta Konovalov, Merily Mikiver and Eva Reiska. The students were supervised by Reet Aus, Maria Pukk and Lisandra Türkson.
The EKA x T4EU podcast episode “Rethinking Fashion Waste” is available HERE. Designer and researcher Reet Aus shares insights on rethinking fashion waste in a discussion led by Anna Lohmatova, exploring the UPMADE® model in Kenya and the impact of EU sustainability regulations on the textile sector.
The exhibition is part of the project “Transferring UPMADE Expertise to Kenya,” led by EKA’s Sustainable Design and Materials Laboratory (DiMa). The project was carried out in cooperation with the Stockholm Environment Institute Tallinn Centre (SEI Tallinn) and Moi University, funded by the Estonian Ministry of Climate’s international climate-cooperation programme, with student mobility supported by the EU Erasmus+ programme.
Running from 29 September to 5 October, Design Night features many other EKA initiatives. The satellite programme includes EKA Design Week and a fashion artists’ exhibition, and EKA students will also take part in the joint display of Estonian design schools. The festival’s opening performance, “Inclusion Is Action,” is organised by EKA lecturer Reet Aus.
The full Design Night programme can be found here.
24.09.2025 — 01.11.2025
Brenda Purtsak’s “Distant veils” at Artrovert Gallery
Brenda Purtsak’s solo exhibition “Distant veils” will open at Artrovert Gallery on 24th of September from 6pm.
Brenda Purtsak’s artistic practice has reflected themes related to human biological body, birth, death, family and kinship. The exhibition at hand combines all themes mentioned above through the lens of contemporary painting with the keywords of desacralized Christian art, compassion and self-sacrifice.
The exhibition addresses people as cultural artifacts and draws parallels between works created especially for the exhibition and well-known historical artworks such as Michelangelo’s Pietà sculpture and Madonna and Child paintings. The desacralization of these symbols allows the artist to address a wider range of personal and cultural meanings that are not associated with religion.
Paintings, ceramic works and charcoal drawings are displayed within Brenda’s exhibition. The ceramic series derive from My Little Pony toy series that she remembers from her childhood. They consist of colorful ponies with unique symbols on the sides of their bottoms called “cutie marks.” These marks represent the unique talent of each pony and its connection to and the relationship with it. The ponies, people, and charcoal drawings in Brenda’s paintings may at first glance seem unfinished and somehow collaged together. However, human memories are mostly not crystal clear or possible to freeze to take a deeper look the same way as photography or film enables to do. As time passes new layers are added or we might discover some that we had not realised existed before.
The exhibition team
Location: Artrovert Gallery, Ristiku tn 10, Tallinn
Opening: 24.09, from 6pm
Open: 24.09–01.11.25, Tue-Sat 12am–6pm
Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna
Graphic design: Rainer Kasekivi
Support and thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Artrovert Gallery, Brenda’s family, Maria Elise Remme, Keithy Kuuspu, Ian Simon Märjamaa
Brenda Purtsak’s “Distant veils” at Artrovert Gallery
Wednesday 24 September, 2025 — Saturday 01 November, 2025
Brenda Purtsak’s solo exhibition “Distant veils” will open at Artrovert Gallery on 24th of September from 6pm.
Brenda Purtsak’s artistic practice has reflected themes related to human biological body, birth, death, family and kinship. The exhibition at hand combines all themes mentioned above through the lens of contemporary painting with the keywords of desacralized Christian art, compassion and self-sacrifice.
The exhibition addresses people as cultural artifacts and draws parallels between works created especially for the exhibition and well-known historical artworks such as Michelangelo’s Pietà sculpture and Madonna and Child paintings. The desacralization of these symbols allows the artist to address a wider range of personal and cultural meanings that are not associated with religion.
Paintings, ceramic works and charcoal drawings are displayed within Brenda’s exhibition. The ceramic series derive from My Little Pony toy series that she remembers from her childhood. They consist of colorful ponies with unique symbols on the sides of their bottoms called “cutie marks.” These marks represent the unique talent of each pony and its connection to and the relationship with it. The ponies, people, and charcoal drawings in Brenda’s paintings may at first glance seem unfinished and somehow collaged together. However, human memories are mostly not crystal clear or possible to freeze to take a deeper look the same way as photography or film enables to do. As time passes new layers are added or we might discover some that we had not realised existed before.
The exhibition team
Location: Artrovert Gallery, Ristiku tn 10, Tallinn
Opening: 24.09, from 6pm
Open: 24.09–01.11.25, Tue-Sat 12am–6pm
Curator: Liisi Kõuhkna
Graphic design: Rainer Kasekivi
Support and thanks to: Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Artrovert Gallery, Brenda’s family, Maria Elise Remme, Keithy Kuuspu, Ian Simon Märjamaa
26.09.2025 — 19.10.2025
Eugenio Marini & Ingrid Helena Pajo “The Day the Line Bent into a Spiral” at EKA Gallery 27.09.–19.10.2025
Eugenio Marini & Ingrid Helena Pajo
THE DAY THE LINE BENT INTO A SPIRAL
Second floor of EKA Gallery 27.09.–19.10.2025
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, September 26 at 6 pm
We don’t know the exact day the line bent into a spiral. At some point, it was simply happening—twisting ever forward, spinning as it turned. In the beginning, perhaps it all moved a little slower—the bending and the spinning—and already then, we were inside it.
“The Day the Line Bent into a Spiral” brings together works, material experiments, and found objects created and collected over the course of nearly a year by artists Eugenio Marini and Ingrid Helena Pajo. The main principle for building this collection of fragments was to work with a single idea for no longer than a week—both in parallel and in collaboration. Another key aspect was the associative threads that emerged while working with the materials: allowing these to carry the artists along, and pausing from time to time somewhere in the middle of the process. While the material may suggest a direction, in the end each form speaks about the artists’ themselves and their temporary states. The exhibition becomes a kind of diary, written in an unknowable order, along curved lines. Now, the artists invite you to turn with them along this line—summoning memory, and rowing your way back to the starting point through the spiral labyrinth.
Eugenio Marini (IT) and Ingrid Helena Pajo (EE) are artists based in Tallinn and Rome. While both artists have individual artistic practices, they have been combining their backgrounds in sculpture and textile by collaborating regularly since 2022. Pajo’s works explore early textile technologies through gathering and weaving, trying to make sense of the experience of human life. Marini reflects on the idea and meaning of utility in today’s living. Found materials are an integral part of this shared journey of exploration, highlighting the importance of the path and the process, often encouraging improvisation.
Graphic design: Daria Titova
Technical support: Erik Hõim
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Sadolin Estonia and Tallinn City.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.
Eugenio Marini & Ingrid Helena Pajo “The Day the Line Bent into a Spiral” at EKA Gallery 27.09.–19.10.2025
Friday 26 September, 2025 — Sunday 19 October, 2025
Eugenio Marini & Ingrid Helena Pajo
THE DAY THE LINE BENT INTO A SPIRAL
Second floor of EKA Gallery 27.09.–19.10.2025
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, September 26 at 6 pm
We don’t know the exact day the line bent into a spiral. At some point, it was simply happening—twisting ever forward, spinning as it turned. In the beginning, perhaps it all moved a little slower—the bending and the spinning—and already then, we were inside it.
“The Day the Line Bent into a Spiral” brings together works, material experiments, and found objects created and collected over the course of nearly a year by artists Eugenio Marini and Ingrid Helena Pajo. The main principle for building this collection of fragments was to work with a single idea for no longer than a week—both in parallel and in collaboration. Another key aspect was the associative threads that emerged while working with the materials: allowing these to carry the artists along, and pausing from time to time somewhere in the middle of the process. While the material may suggest a direction, in the end each form speaks about the artists’ themselves and their temporary states. The exhibition becomes a kind of diary, written in an unknowable order, along curved lines. Now, the artists invite you to turn with them along this line—summoning memory, and rowing your way back to the starting point through the spiral labyrinth.
Eugenio Marini (IT) and Ingrid Helena Pajo (EE) are artists based in Tallinn and Rome. While both artists have individual artistic practices, they have been combining their backgrounds in sculpture and textile by collaborating regularly since 2022. Pajo’s works explore early textile technologies through gathering and weaving, trying to make sense of the experience of human life. Marini reflects on the idea and meaning of utility in today’s living. Found materials are an integral part of this shared journey of exploration, highlighting the importance of the path and the process, often encouraging improvisation.
Graphic design: Daria Titova
Technical support: Erik Hõim
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, Sadolin Estonia and Tallinn City.
Opening drinks from mirai™ and Põhjala Brewery.
25.09.2025 — 19.10.2025
Ron Verlin’s Existential Fashion Exhibition at Draakon Gallery
On Thursday, September 25th at 18.00, Ron Verlin’s first solo exhibition that which I was in life, I am in death will open at Draakoni Gallery. The exhibition brings fashion into the gallery context in a distinctive way, framing it through existential and social perspectives.
The spatial installation presented in the gallery integrates fashion, light, and sound to create an environment that invites visitors to engage in existential reflection. Central to the exhibition are garments conceived as symbolic objects, embodying themes of decadence, decay, and transition as metaphorical states of weariness that precede redemption or rebirth. These motifs unfold through a language of symbols and allegory. At the root of the project is the artist’s dream of navigating a city with a bottomless pit at its core. The artist later found echoes of this haunting dream in the pages of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, and together with Purgatorio, these seminal texts served as foundational sources of inspiration.
Ron Verlin is an emerging fashion designer whose work draws upon faith, mythology, and the psyche. The works engage with existential concerns against the backdrop of a world marked by scientific progress and technological advancement, yet spiritual depletion, raising questions about the possibility of redemption and renewal. The exhibition interrogates fashion’s role in contemporary society, questioning whether it functions solely as aesthetic expression or whether it can also serve as a conduit for critical inquiry.
The curator of the exhibition is Sten Ojavee (Estonian Center for Contemporary Art), and the project manager is Olivia Soans.
Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia
Partner: Center For Contemporary Arts, Estonia
The exhibitions at Draakoni Gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.
Ron Verlin’s Existential Fashion Exhibition at Draakon Gallery
Thursday 25 September, 2025 — Sunday 19 October, 2025
On Thursday, September 25th at 18.00, Ron Verlin’s first solo exhibition that which I was in life, I am in death will open at Draakoni Gallery. The exhibition brings fashion into the gallery context in a distinctive way, framing it through existential and social perspectives.
The spatial installation presented in the gallery integrates fashion, light, and sound to create an environment that invites visitors to engage in existential reflection. Central to the exhibition are garments conceived as symbolic objects, embodying themes of decadence, decay, and transition as metaphorical states of weariness that precede redemption or rebirth. These motifs unfold through a language of symbols and allegory. At the root of the project is the artist’s dream of navigating a city with a bottomless pit at its core. The artist later found echoes of this haunting dream in the pages of Dante Alighieri’s Inferno, and together with Purgatorio, these seminal texts served as foundational sources of inspiration.
Ron Verlin is an emerging fashion designer whose work draws upon faith, mythology, and the psyche. The works engage with existential concerns against the backdrop of a world marked by scientific progress and technological advancement, yet spiritual depletion, raising questions about the possibility of redemption and renewal. The exhibition interrogates fashion’s role in contemporary society, questioning whether it functions solely as aesthetic expression or whether it can also serve as a conduit for critical inquiry.
The curator of the exhibition is Sten Ojavee (Estonian Center for Contemporary Art), and the project manager is Olivia Soans.
Supported by: Cultural Endowment of Estonia
Partner: Center For Contemporary Arts, Estonia
The exhibitions at Draakoni Gallery are supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia, the Ministry of Culture, and Liviko AS.
29.09.2025 — 12.10.2025
Fashion Final Collections @Disainiöö 2025
Fashion designers Ron-Jonas Verlin (Ron Verlin), Maria Roosiaas, Jaagup Kaiv, Kristiina Tali and Hanna Tiina Pekk from the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Fashion Department will present the best works from their successfully defended graduation collections in the spring of 2025 at the Solaris Centre.
The works selected by the designers will be on display on the Solaris Centre’s Design Street from 29.09-12.10.2025.
Fashion Final Collections @Disainiöö 2025
Monday 29 September, 2025 — Sunday 12 October, 2025
Fashion designers Ron-Jonas Verlin (Ron Verlin), Maria Roosiaas, Jaagup Kaiv, Kristiina Tali and Hanna Tiina Pekk from the Estonian Academy of Arts’ Fashion Department will present the best works from their successfully defended graduation collections in the spring of 2025 at the Solaris Centre.
The works selected by the designers will be on display on the Solaris Centre’s Design Street from 29.09-12.10.2025.