Calendar

29.05–16.08.2026
Maria Kapajeva. I Am A Border
Curator: Siim Preiman, Exhibition designer: Anu Vahtra

Estonian artist Maria Kapajeva will open her largest solo exhibition to date at the Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion on 28 May at 6 pm. Titled I Am a Border, the exhibition brings together 16 works created between 2014 and 2026, many of them produced specifically for this show. Admission is free.

The exhibition is the culmination of more than a decade of artistic research into the border as a geographical, bodily, and emotional phenomenon.

Its point of departure is the region beyond Narva, Narvataguse – the former homeland of the artist’s paternal family, now located within the Russian border zone and inaccessible to the family today. Through photographs, video works, installations, and textiles, Kapajeva approaches borderliness not as a fixed place, but as a continuous state of transition – never fully one thing, never fully becoming the other.

The works intertwine the Narva River, the post-operative body, family archives, a disappearing language, and disrupted connections to landscape and heritage. One of the exhibition’s central works, Four Generations Later, features the artist’s relatives reading dialect texts from the Narvataguse region recorded in 1947 – a language that has become partly incomprehensible even to younger Russian-speaking generations.
The installations incorporate materials such as maps from the family archive, diary entries by Kapajeva’s father, a family tree drawn by a geneticist, and a blanket that once belonged to the artist’s grandmother. Several works also explore the fluidity of the body and identity, connecting queer perspectives with ecology and border landscapes.

“What moves me in Maria Kapajeva’s work is her ability to speak about identity without simplifying it. Her works hold vulnerability, the weight of history, and a deeply personal clarity all at once,” said the exhibition’s curator Siim Preiman. “Every day I see how nationalism is often something that divides rather than unites us.”

The exhibition is accompanied by a diverse public programme:

• 30 May at 2 pm – curator’s tour with Siim Preiman
• 17 June at 5 pm – artist’s tour with Maria Kapajeva
• In July, Maria Kapajeva and Anton Küünal will host a joint event exploring the intersections of plants, ecology, and queer perspectives (date to be confirmed)
• 9 August – a collective textile workshop titled Queering and Sewing Together
• On the exhibition’s final day, 16 August, there will be an artist’s tour followed by a communal cooking event in the Korr-korr (Borborygmus) series, where the exhibition team and visitors will prepare and share food together.

Maria Kapajeva is an artist whose work explores questions of identity and gender, with a particular focus on in-between and transitional states. Her works are included in several museum collections, including the Kiasma Museum of Contemporary Art and the Tartu Art Museum. She is currently pursuing doctoral studies at the Estonian Academy of Arts and is one of the recipients of the Estonian state artist’s salary.

Ronja Siitonen, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, Martina Zito
“Charge, Jaw, Babble, Faucet”
EKA Gallery 4.07.–16.08.2026 (NB! Closed during 20.07.–2.08.)
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, July 3 at 6 pm

The exhibition “Charge, Jaw, Babble, Faucet” expands through the magical, gray areas of active incoherence, wielding gibberish as both shield and tool to explore alternative logics of language. Here, communication extends beyond words into expanded forms and hidden meanings. Gibberish, as a private space of understanding, offers a playground for hide-and-seek between language and body, humour and mystery.

Working across video, installation, sculpture, and jelly painting, the exhibition brings together artworks by Ronja Siitonen, Maria Wrang-Rasmussen, and Martina Zito. Here, modern-day spells take shape as rhythmical languages in translation. Alchemical transformations simmer as teeth are scratched and paws wait patiently; skin wrinkles and stretches into a sweet tension; the trapeze pendulum hangs poised, ready for a push.

Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™.

Sonya Isupova
“Water Usually in the Shape of a River. Hydroelectric Imaginaries of the Southern Ukrainian Landscape”
EKA Gallery 4.07.–16.08.2026 (NB! Closed during 20.07.–2.08.)
Open Tue–Sat 12–6 pm Sun 12–4 pm
Opening: Friday, July 3 at 6 pm

“Water Usually in the Shape of a River” is the first solo exhibition by Ukrainian artist and researcher Sonya Isupova. The exhibition explores Soviet infrastructural projects and their modes of representation, focusing on the hydroelectric dams built along the Dnipro River in southern Ukraine, particularly the Kakhovka and Dnipro hydroelectric stations. Through film and archival research, Isupova examines how these projects reshaped both landscape and collective memory.

The exhibition forms part of her doctoral research on the effects of colonial infrastructure on the landscape. She approaches Soviet films about infrastructure as “imaginary maps” that helped construct a unified Soviet space while simultaneously preserving visual records of territories before their transformation. Through these films, it becomes possible to trace the beginnings of ruination and reconstruct fragmented memories of landscapes submerged beneath the man-made seas of the Kakhovka and Dnipro reservoirs.

Positioned between monumentality and utility, Soviet hydroelectric projects generated a distinct visual language that presented nature as transformed by political power. Through archival artefacts and speculative reconstruction, the exhibition revisits these submerged landscapes and the histories embedded within them.

Events taking part of the finissage of the exhibition “Water, Usually in the Shape of a River” at EKA Gallery on Friday, August 14:
1–2.30 pm public peer preview
6–8 pm finissage: live musical performance by dijakritika and drinks from Põhjala Brewery

Events are free of charge.

Graphic design: Simon Janson
Technical support: Ats Kruusing
The exhibition is supported by the Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Sadolin Estonia.
Opening drinks from mirai™.

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.

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

Opening on Thursday, 21 May at 6 pm in the Great Hall of the Kumu Art Museum
(Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1, Tallinn).
 
Chromatic Drift creates a cohesive perceptual and spatial experience centred on colour, a defining element in the oeuvre of the Estonian painter Kristi Kongi. Works created specifically for this exhibition over the past couple of years, together with the surrounding installation-based environment, evoke both chromatic richness and a poetic mode of being in unmapped territory.
 
At the opening, the launch of the book accompanying the exhibition will also take place.
 
The opening will take place in Kumu’s courtyard, weather permitting.
 
Opening programme on Saturday, 23 May:

Exhibition tours with curator Ann Mirjam Vaikla and artist Kristi Kongi: 12 noon (in English) and 2 pm (in Estonian)
Artist talk with Kristi Kongi at 3:30 pm

The exhibition will remain open until 11 October 2026.

Curator: Ann Mirjam Vaikla
Exhibition design: Mari Hunt, Grete Daut (MARIHUNT architects)
Graphic design: Brit Pavelson
Exhibition installation manager: Tõnis Medri
Coordinator: Anastassia Langinen

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

On 21 August at 13:00 the public peer-review of the exhibition project, part of the doctoral research of Cultural Heritage and Conservation doctoral candidate Triin Reidla will take place at the Museum of Estonian Architecture (Ahtri 2), first floor.

Supervisors: Ingrid Ruudi, PhD (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Maris Mändel, PhD (Estonian Academy of Arts)
Reviewers: prof Andres Kurg (Estonian Academy of Arts) and Jutta Tynkkunen, PhD (Museum of Finnish Architecture and Design, Helsinki)
The event will be held in English.
To get the most out of the discussion, visitors are encouraged to see the exhibition before attending the peer-review event.

The exhibition “Architect Miia Masso. In Five Acts”, the second project of the practice-based doctoral research, draws on Masso’s personal archive and presents highlights from her more than fifty-year architectural career. Divided into five thematic acts, the exhibition explores Masso’s work from both the Soviet period and the years following the restoration of Estonia’s independence. It features apartment buildings, summer houses, private residences, public buildings, urban plans and commercial buildings characteristic of both periods. From the personal archive, a number of distinctive original works and documents are presented alongside copies that the architect regarded as an essential part of her portfolio.
The exhibition is open until 23 August.

At the seminar, we will introduce Met(s)aRING, a joint research and development project by EKA PAKK (Estonian Academy of Arts) and RMK (State Forest Management Centre), which aims to develop a circular and modular construction system for RMK’s visitor infrastructure, including small-scale structures and cabins.

The project explores how infrastructure can be designed to be adaptable, upgradable, and reusable over time. The focus is on recurring standardized timber components, the use of production residues, and solutions that reduce material consumption, simplify maintenance, and extend the lifespan of structures.

The aim of the seminar is to gather practical feedback from builders and manufacturers on the applicability of the system currently under development. We will discuss how standardized or flexible a construction system should be, the opportunities for using reclaimed or lower-grade timber, and how procurement models and collaboration frameworks influence the implementation of sustainable solutions.

You can register for the event HERE!

PROGRAMME

27 August 2026, 9:30–12:30
EKA White Building (Kotzebue 10, Tallinn)

9:30 Introduction to the ongoing research project, RMK’s long-term goals and ambitions (RMK)

9:45 Eight Design Principles for Visitor Infrastructure Design (EKA)

10:00 Introduction to the Construction System (EKA)

10:15 The Use of Underutilized and Lower-Value Timber in Construction (TalTech)

10:30 Coffee Break and Introduction to the Construction System Prototype

11:00–12:30 Workshop

Research at EKA PAKK is co-funded by the European Union and the Estonian Research Council through the project “PUUSTER: Development of Methods for Valorising Underutilized Timber and Wood Materials in Construction” (TEM-TA80).

This event is part of the Adapter Network Collaboration Club Series, a platform where researchers, companies, and representatives of the public and private sectors come together to engage in meaningful discussions and explore opportunities for collaboration. You can find all Adapter Collaboration Clubs here.

On Friday, August 28th, starting at 12:00, the opening ceremony of the 2026/27 academic year will be held. The ceremony takes place in the main hall (A101) and lasts approximately 1.5 hours.

“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.

EKA Arh Conference 2026 is titled To Be Continued….From Scattered Facts to Shared Concerns, and takes place as Day 1 of the two-day Tallinn Architecture Biennial TAB Symposium.

Tickets for the EKA Architecture Conference and the entire TAB Symposium — available at an early-bird price until 31 July — can be purchased on Fienta.

The 2026 EKA Arh Conference focuses on one of the central questions facing architecture and urban development today: how do we move forward when starting from scratch is no longer a viable option? While knowledge about climate transition, resource limits, and the built environment is abundant, translating that knowledge into collective action remains a challenge. Rather than asking only what comes next, the conference asks what can and should continue.

Across urban, building, and material scales, international speakers and researchers explore adaptation, reuse, and transformation in the built environment. The programme brings together perspectives from architecture, planning, construction, and research to discuss how existing places, buildings, and resources can support meaningful change, and how scattered knowledge can become shared concerns capable of shaping long-term action.

Programme

09:30–09:45
Opening Words

09:45–10:30
Transformation Keynote
Aleksi Neuvonen (Demos Helsinki, Finland)
Finnish futures thinker and co-founder of Demos Helsinki, whose work explores societal transformation, post-growth futures, and new models of collective action.

10:30–10:45
Coffee Break

10:45–12:15 | Parallel Sessions

Main Hall – Session I: Spatial and Architectural Transformation

This session explores processes of spatial transformation across urban and architectural scales, examining how cities, landscapes, and built environments adapt to changing social, ecological, and cultural conditions. Contributions address themes such as urban restructuring, adaptive reuse, spatial continuity, and the relationship between territorial systems, public space, and architectural intervention.

Monumental studio – Session I: Prefabrication, Retrofit, and Adaptive Reuse

This session examines prefabricated and industrialized approaches to the transformation of existing buildings and urban fabric. Contributions explore themes such as adaptive reuse, modular retrofit systems, circular renovation strategies, and the extension of building lifecycles, addressing how contemporary construction methods can support more sustainable and resource-conscious forms of spatial transformation.

12:15–13:15
Lunch

13:15–14:00
Adaptation Keynote
Hiroto Kobayashi (Keio University, Tokyo, Japan)

Japanese architect, professor at Keio University, and founder of Kobayashi Maki Design Workshop, known for his work on adaptive reuse, post-disaster reconstruction, and resource-conscious architecture.

14:00–14:15
Coffee Break

14:15–15:45 | Parallel Sessions

Main Hall – Session II: Material Systems and Circular Construction

This session focuses on material systems, construction processes, and circular approaches to the built environment. Contributions examine themes such as material reuse, prefabrication, tectonics, fabrication methods, and resource-aware design strategies, addressing how construction systems can support more adaptive and sustainable spatial practices.

Monumental studio – Parallel Session II: Participatory Planning and Urban Transformation

This session explores participatory approaches to urban transformation through digital mapping, GIS-based spatial analysis, and collaborative planning tools. Contributions address themes such as tactical urban interventions, community engagement, and urban greening strategies, examining how localized actions and participatory processes can inform broader spatial and policy frameworks and vice versa.

15:45–16:00
Coffee Break

16:00–16:45
Panel Discussion

16:45–17:00
Closing Words

The EKA Institute of Art History and Visual Culture is part of the Visual Arts in Europe: An Open History (EVA) project that brings together more than 150 art and heritage historians representing the 46 member countries of the Council of Europe. The project is led by an Editorial Board, composed of six European specialists, and supported by the International Association of Research Institutes in the History of Art (RIHA). Its scientific and operational coordination is provided by the Institut national d’histoire de l’art (INHA) in Paris.

Launched in 2019, this scientific and editorial project results in the publication of a digital platform, documenting the history of the visual arts on the European continent, from prehistory to the present day. This platform will be structured around a collection of 475 objects and images, selected in consultation with all of its institutional partners. It is developed within the framework of an international dialogue, remaining attentive to the plurality and richness of scholarly traditions, accessible to all audiences, and providing an account of current research in the discipline of art history.

This seminar will examine the principles that inspired the launch of this project, the methodology used both for the selection of objects and the attribution of associated texts, as well as the challenges encountered during the development of the digital platform. The presentation of the project and platform prototype will be followed by an open discussion with colleagues from the EKA Institute of Art History and Visual Culture, host of this seminar and Estonian project partner. With INHA director Anne-Solène Rolland and project coordinator Margot Sanitas present, the seminar will be an opportunity for all the Estonian representatives to share their reflections on the selection of objects and how the project contributes to reshaping our common history of European visual culture.

When you think of the Nordic and Baltic regions, your first associations might be trolls and Vikings, the midnight sun and polar nights, saunas and ice swimming, hygge and fika, Nokia and IKEA. Maybe you have also heard about their excellent school systems and strong social welfare models. But what is behind these myths? 16 comic artists from across the Nordics and Baltics created works that reflect their unique perspectives on life in the region.

Participating artists: Akvile Magicdusté (Lithuania), Cecilia Vårhed (Sweden), Clara Jetsmark (Denmark), Disa Wallander (Sweden), Elín Elísabet (Iceland), Emmi Valve (Finland), Ida Neverdahl (Norway), Joonas Sildre (Estonia), Jurijs Tatarkins (Latvia), Laura Ķeniņš (Canada), Liisa Kruusmägi (Estonia), Mari Ahokoivu (Finland), Ona Kvašytė (Lithuania), Søren Glosimodt Mosdal (Denmark), Tim Ng Tvedt (Norway), Tommi Musturi (Finland). Curator: David Schilter.

Along with the exhibition comes the publication Baltic Comics Magazine š! #57 ”Mythbústers,” which collects these stories and gets distributed worldwide.

Organized by Kuš! in collaboration with Nordic Council of Minister’s Offices in Latvia and Estonia.

Supported by Latvian State Culture Capital Foundation, Nordic Council of Minister’s Offices in Latvia and Estonia, Danish Cultural Institute and Embassy of Sweden in Riga.