Estonian Dream is a small festival of contemporary Estonian art, which is comprised of four exhibitions, a screening of documentary films and
other events: musical and artistic performances, meetings with artists, etc.
Estonian Dream is a collage of exhibitions and events, which has been
compiled through an active dialogue with local institutions hosting the
festival. On the one hand, it is based on the experiences of the Stavanger
“artivists” with Estonian art and, on the other hand, with the curator’s
experience with the Stavanger art scene, the local institutions, and artists.
The title “Estonian Dream” is borrowed from one of Flo Kasearu’s videos, which is being shown in the exhibition Little House in the Periphery, at Rogaland Kunstsenter. The main character of the video is an Estonian immigrant living in Texas, who posts videos on YouTube under the name Texasgirly1979, and whose material comprises this work. Kasearu’s montage video is hysterically funny, sad, tragic, and at the same time as dramatic as a soap opera. The main character’s relationship with Estonia, her former homeland, is sentimental and idealistic, while her charming superficiality and gaiety hides a tremendous loneliness and homesickness that is aching in her. The festival’s relationship with Estonia is rather critical, but here too, one can find drama, tragedy as well as comedy.
Estonian Dream is not a typical “national presentation”, which always has certain traits of cultural imperialism and pretensions of representability. Instead, it tries to focus critically on the nation and the state, along with its official Estonian Dream. Hopefully, through the Estonian “case”, the festival will develop into an examination of the phenomenon of Eastern Europe in the post-communist era more generally. There’s also no sense in totally renouncing the idea of the format of national representations.
We are providing a discoursive survey of recent developments in Estonian contemporary art and documentary film, which is, however, clearly defined by the critical focus of the festival.
The title “Estonian Dream” is borrowed from one of Flo Kasearu’s videos, which is being shown in the exhibition Little House in the Periphery, at Rogaland Kunstsenter. The main character of the video is an Estonian immigrant living in Texas, who posts videos on YouTube under the name Texasgirly1979, and whose material comprises this work. Kasearu’s montage video is hysterically funny, sad, tragic, and at the same time as dramatic as a soap opera. The main character’s relationship with Estonia, her former homeland, is sentimental and idealistic, while her charming superficiality and gaiety hides a tremendous loneliness and homesickness that is aching in her. The festival’s relationship with Estonia is rather critical, but here too, one can find drama, tragedy as well as comedy.
Estonian Dream is not a typical “national presentation”, which always has certain traits of cultural imperialism and pretensions of representability. Instead, it tries to focus critically on the nation and the state, along with its official Estonian Dream. Hopefully, through the Estonian “case”, the festival will develop into an examination of the phenomenon of Eastern Europe in the post-communist era more generally. There’s also no sense in totally renouncing the idea of the format of national representations.
We are providing a discoursive survey of recent developments in Estonian contemporary art and documentary film, which is, however, clearly defined by the critical focus of the festival.
In one way, the project constitutes a short-term intervention in the peaceful
life of Norway’s oil capital, but on the other hand, it’s an Estonian invasion
of Estonia. This is Estonia placed under a magnifying glass, and this is an
Estonia that differs significantly from the official Estonia(n Dream), which
is often presented to the world as a green, high-tech, progressive and
capable little country. Even if this self-image is not entirely wrong, there are
still great shortcomings in it – topics that tend to be avoided. In Estonia, as a former Soviet Republic and post-Communist state, history-based
national confusion (tensions between various ethnic groups and different
interpretations of history), neoliberal economic policies, conservative
cultural policies, and chauvinist attitudes to relations between men and
women, impact the present and the future, as well as the approaches to
oneself and others. By dissecting this particular Eastern European country,
which is typical on the one hand, and somewhat exceptional on the other,
we will try to arrive at politics via poetics.
In the 1990s, Hasso Krull characterized Estonian culture as a culture of interruption. What he meant was that certain developments in culture have never been realized, since they have been disrupted, which has in turn established a new dominant developmental trend. According to Krull, these alternating interruptions have been one of the main characteristics of Estonian history since the 13th century; whereas, the last negative interruption was Estonia’s forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union, and the last positive interruption was the restoration of independence in the early 1990s. For many old school dissidents, exile Estonians and probably many politicians, this last interruption was the end point of history – eternal harmony had arrived with the restoration of independence.
In the course of rashly reconnecting with Europe, both the good, but especially the bad, aspects of Western society were adopted. A new Eastern European identity and vision was not born, nor was the vocabulary for its academic and philosophical treatment. A relatively primitive scheme of thought was established, in which leftwing ideas, social and collective values were bad (as if the Soviet Union and leftism were one and the same thing) and capitalism, rightwing ideas, and neo-liberalism were good. Estonia still has the reputation of being an industrious pioneer in Europe, who always, diligently, does more than is required of it, by being as neoliberal as Great Britain, on the one hand and, on the other hand, being more precise than Germany in fulfilling all euro directives; at the same time, when many other Western and Eastern European countries only chuckle
at the attempts of euro officials to measure all of Europe with the same yardstick. It is only in the last few years, that this fixed idea is startingto abate. Thus, Estonia is really starting to correspond to the slogan – “Estonia – Positively Transforming” – which the Estonian government ordered at the beginning of the century, for an obscene amount of money, from a British advertising agency, in a project managed by the wife of our current president. However, the change is not quite what the people who ordered the slogan had imagined. The unhurried culture of suffering – such a typically Estonian behavioral pattern – is starting to be replaced by a culture in which people are aware of their rights and are ready to defend them. This is really a positive change.
In the 1990s, Hasso Krull characterized Estonian culture as a culture of interruption. What he meant was that certain developments in culture have never been realized, since they have been disrupted, which has in turn established a new dominant developmental trend. According to Krull, these alternating interruptions have been one of the main characteristics of Estonian history since the 13th century; whereas, the last negative interruption was Estonia’s forcible incorporation into the Soviet Union, and the last positive interruption was the restoration of independence in the early 1990s. For many old school dissidents, exile Estonians and probably many politicians, this last interruption was the end point of history – eternal harmony had arrived with the restoration of independence.
In the course of rashly reconnecting with Europe, both the good, but especially the bad, aspects of Western society were adopted. A new Eastern European identity and vision was not born, nor was the vocabulary for its academic and philosophical treatment. A relatively primitive scheme of thought was established, in which leftwing ideas, social and collective values were bad (as if the Soviet Union and leftism were one and the same thing) and capitalism, rightwing ideas, and neo-liberalism were good. Estonia still has the reputation of being an industrious pioneer in Europe, who always, diligently, does more than is required of it, by being as neoliberal as Great Britain, on the one hand and, on the other hand, being more precise than Germany in fulfilling all euro directives; at the same time, when many other Western and Eastern European countries only chuckle
at the attempts of euro officials to measure all of Europe with the same yardstick. It is only in the last few years, that this fixed idea is startingto abate. Thus, Estonia is really starting to correspond to the slogan – “Estonia – Positively Transforming” – which the Estonian government ordered at the beginning of the century, for an obscene amount of money, from a British advertising agency, in a project managed by the wife of our current president. However, the change is not quite what the people who ordered the slogan had imagined. The unhurried culture of suffering – such a typically Estonian behavioral pattern – is starting to be replaced by a culture in which people are aware of their rights and are ready to defend them. This is really a positive change.
In Estonia, the contemporary critical art discourse developed in the early 1990s and caused a great deal of confusion, because this art had
very little in common with the art that people had been used to seeing
during the Soviet era, which was labeled as “alternative” or “dissident”
art. As mentioned above, for many people, “rebelling” was quite an
incomprehensible activity, because during the era of Independence, of
“postmodernist pluralism”, when “everything was allowed”, there was
supposedly nothing to “rebel” against. Jaan Toomik, whose depressive,
existential works seemed to be located between different worlds, as far as
the author’s position was concerned, produced as classical psychological
art on the one hand; while on the other, he worked with performances,
videos and installations, which were new and never-before-seen tools for
a Soviet artist. Toomik created powerful and poetical, somewhat uncanny
images of anguish and nightmares, but also of momentary mitigations
and salvations. These images projected onto a background of new social
circumstances, made them into an embodiment of new and “distasteful”
contemporary art, which constantly and inconveniently reminds people
that far from everything is infinitely rosy in this “brave new world”. In some
sense, this is symptomatic of all of Eastern Europe, where the top artists
of the first decade of this “new and bright” era of freedom created very
nightmarish, corporeal and physical art – Katarzina Kozyra in Poland, Oleg
Kulik in Russia, Eglé Rakauskaité in Lithuania, Jaan Toomik in Estonia....
Five of Jaan Toomik’s video installations, produced over the course of
three decades, are exhibited in the Skur6 – starting from Dancing Home,
which was created in 1995 and resulted in his international breakthrough,
and ending with a totally new work, which was completed especially for
this exhibition.
The exhibition called I Don’t Eat Flowers! at Hå gamle prestegard includes another chrestomathic Eastern European work of art – Loser, by Kai Kaljo, from 1997, which rather directly points out some of the strange by-products of this achieved freedom. Kaljo stands in front of the camera and speaks, accompanied by the canned laughter that we know from countless comedy shows. She says that she is 37 years old, and works at the Academy of Arts for $ 90 per month, and that the most important thing for an artist is freedom, and that she is very happy. In some sense, with this short, only 11⁄2-minute-long video, Kaljo is able to splendidly conceptualize the paradoxes of Eastern Europe at that time. The topics of labor, the body, and gender, and their relationships, are the central themes of the exhibition, which, besides Kaljo, includes works by Marge Monko, Liina Siib and Anna-Stina Treumund. In 2011, Treumund paraphrased the Loser, by recasting the roles of Kaljo’s video. If Kaljo’s main character was a female artist that portrayed herself, then feminist lesbian artist Treumund casts herself in the role of a homophobic Estonian boor. In some sense, this paraphrasing also characterizes the critical turn that occurred in society itself, where, compared to the 90s, these themes started appearing in the media and started manifesting the public’s interests, despite the increased popularity of conservative views in Estonia. Just like elsewhere in Europe, Estonia also has not been untouched by this.
The exhibition called I Don’t Eat Flowers! at Hå gamle prestegard includes another chrestomathic Eastern European work of art – Loser, by Kai Kaljo, from 1997, which rather directly points out some of the strange by-products of this achieved freedom. Kaljo stands in front of the camera and speaks, accompanied by the canned laughter that we know from countless comedy shows. She says that she is 37 years old, and works at the Academy of Arts for $ 90 per month, and that the most important thing for an artist is freedom, and that she is very happy. In some sense, with this short, only 11⁄2-minute-long video, Kaljo is able to splendidly conceptualize the paradoxes of Eastern Europe at that time. The topics of labor, the body, and gender, and their relationships, are the central themes of the exhibition, which, besides Kaljo, includes works by Marge Monko, Liina Siib and Anna-Stina Treumund. In 2011, Treumund paraphrased the Loser, by recasting the roles of Kaljo’s video. If Kaljo’s main character was a female artist that portrayed herself, then feminist lesbian artist Treumund casts herself in the role of a homophobic Estonian boor. In some sense, this paraphrasing also characterizes the critical turn that occurred in society itself, where, compared to the 90s, these themes started appearing in the media and started manifesting the public’s interests, despite the increased popularity of conservative views in Estonia. Just like elsewhere in Europe, Estonia also has not been untouched by this.
If the 1990s of Estonian society were characterized by the ultra liberalism
– in the extremely permissive context of cowboy capitalism, the attitude
towards sexual minorities was also comparatively liberal – then the 00s were characterized, primarily, by a constantly deepening national
conservatism, accompanied by all the attendant problems – from
homophobia to intolerance. The shifts in national self-awareness are the
focus of the exhibition titled Little House in the Periphery at Rogaland
Kunstsenter, as well as of its direct counterpart – the short retrospective
of Estonian documentaries at KINOKINO. The artists participating in the
exhibition include Flo Kasearu, Kristina Norman, Johnson ja Johnson, as
well as Johannes Säre and Kristiina Hansen, all of who have dealt with
these topics to a greater or lesser extent.
The title of Little House in the Periphery is borrowed from the tiny installation by Säre and Hansen, which in turn, paraphrased the legendary TV series Little House on the Prairie. Under the cover of a sentimental plot and tremendous amiability, this TV series was moralizing, conservative and didactic, and taught the viewers all the right values of a true Christian. The exhibition probes topics such as memory and identity politics, its shifts and strategies. The same motifs are also central to the retrospective of documentary films at KINOKINO, where all selected films deal with similar issues. The connecting link between the two events is Kristina Norman. She is participating in the exhibition with a video installation called Common Ground, that deals with the problems of refugees, which is currently a hot topic in Estonia; and with a full-length documentary called A Monument to Please Everyone, which deals with the complicated political-technological issues surrounding the erection of the Estonian War of Independence Monument. In addition, films by the most important documentary filmmakers of the last decade will be shown, including Andres Maimik and Rain Tolk, Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma, and Meelis Muhu. Jaan Tootsen’s documentary New World, which observes the activities of a small group of activists in their attempt to establish a new community center, will also be shown.
The title of Little House in the Periphery is borrowed from the tiny installation by Säre and Hansen, which in turn, paraphrased the legendary TV series Little House on the Prairie. Under the cover of a sentimental plot and tremendous amiability, this TV series was moralizing, conservative and didactic, and taught the viewers all the right values of a true Christian. The exhibition probes topics such as memory and identity politics, its shifts and strategies. The same motifs are also central to the retrospective of documentary films at KINOKINO, where all selected films deal with similar issues. The connecting link between the two events is Kristina Norman. She is participating in the exhibition with a video installation called Common Ground, that deals with the problems of refugees, which is currently a hot topic in Estonia; and with a full-length documentary called A Monument to Please Everyone, which deals with the complicated political-technological issues surrounding the erection of the Estonian War of Independence Monument. In addition, films by the most important documentary filmmakers of the last decade will be shown, including Andres Maimik and Rain Tolk, Jaak Kilmi and Kiur Aarma, and Meelis Muhu. Jaan Tootsen’s documentary New World, which observes the activities of a small group of activists in their attempt to establish a new community center, will also be shown.
The exhibition series is completed by Milk-Method Men at Galleri SULT,
with the participation of Kaido Ole and Erki Kasemets. Both men arrived
on the art scene at about the same time in the early 90s and have therefore
been at the forefront of the local art world for around 20 years. Every day,
Erki Kasemets has sewn a new button on his jacket, and every day he has
painted a picture on a milk container, which can bee seen at this exhibition.
We could also view his work as a subjective yardstick of Estonian history.
Kaido Ole exhibits five paintings of a series of 28, the recurrent theme of
which is the wheel, where all the depicted systems try to remain upright.If Kasemets uses his art to measure his own life, Ole depicts the world’s
fragile balance, which can collapse at any moment.
Alongside the festival’s exhibition and film program, the viewer also has the opportunity to participate in conversations with the artists, and inErki Kasemets’s participation performance. Gaypunk artist Chungin Han Minjujui will be appearing live at the opening of the exhibition. As the curator, I hope that visiting this festival will be just as interesting, pleasant and intellectually satisfying for the visitors as it was for me to compile this program. Welcome to the Estonian Dream!
Respectfully,
Anders Härm
Curator
Alongside the festival’s exhibition and film program, the viewer also has the opportunity to participate in conversations with the artists, and inErki Kasemets’s participation performance. Gaypunk artist Chungin Han Minjujui will be appearing live at the opening of the exhibition. As the curator, I hope that visiting this festival will be just as interesting, pleasant and intellectually satisfying for the visitors as it was for me to compile this program. Welcome to the Estonian Dream!
Respectfully,
Anders Härm
Curator
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