The general objective of the project is to study the dynamics of national identity in 20th-century visual culture and built environment in Estonia. How it has been legitimized and determined by artistic and spatial practices (shift in focus, emergence of the alternative narratives) and systems of knowledge that aim at creating of local representations of the past (i. e. the writing of history). What kind of interpretations of art history could we draw going beyond the nationalistic narrative but keeping local situation in mind and keeping distance to universalist history of form. What kind of institutional practices formed national-European dialectics in the evolution of Estonian art and architecture? What kind of images and objects were favoured in the limits and possibilities of national discourse during different periods? What is the cultural self-portrait constructed according to canon in the 20th century art?
Principal investigator: Mart Kalm
Research staff: Jonathan Blackwood, Jaak Kangilaski, Katrin Kivimaa, Andres Kurg, Mari Laanemets, Ene Lamp, Epp Lankots
Other research staff: Kristina Jõekalda, Kädi Talvoja
Duration: 2009–2014
See in the Estonian Research Information System