Estonia / Identity

Studio (2015) by Agnes Liping

Over the centuries, Estonia has been governed by the Swedes, the Germans and the Russians (Soviet occupation ended only in 1991 during a failed hardliner putsch in Moscow), subsequently joining NATO and the European Union in 2004 (in 2011 it adopted the euro as the national currency). Friendly Estonia is now considered the birthplace of Skype, the online videoconferencing service invented by a Swede and a Finn but developed here in 2003. The first words spoken on the network were, in fact, in Estonian (Tere, kas sa kuuled mind? Hi, can you hear me?).

Field of Possibilities X (2015) by Laura Kuusk

The country’s passion for choral singing, moreover, is such a strong manifestation of national identity that it has been included in the UNESCO list of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity. What’s more, Estonia achieved independence from the former Soviet Union in the laulev revolutsioon, the “Singing Revolution” that began in 1987 and blossomed a year later at the Song Festival, when a crowd of 300 thousand people sang prohibited patriotic songs in front of political leaders.

Artist is an exhibitionist (2015) by Lembe Ruben

The capital Tallinn, the oldest in northern Europe, boasts an old town that is still intact, buildings with tall, pitched roofs, a two kilometre long town wall, a gothic Town Hall and the oldest pharmacy in the world still open to the public. The former industrial quarter of Rotermann, opposite the harbour and a stone’s throw from the old town, has become a hub for culture and nightlife: abandoned factories, kilns, distilleries and barns have been converted into art galleries, museums, cinemas, hotels, clubs, restaurants and cafes. A living and direct testimony to the young, lively, technological Tallinn discovered by the world during its tenure as European Capital of Culture in 2011.

Untitled (2015) by Olivia Parmasto

In his epistolary novel Border State – the story of a young translator who moves to Paris to work on an anthology of French post-war poetry – the writer Emil Tode, an international literary phenomenon of the nineties, offered a profound reflection on the process of building an Estonian identity that from the “geography of the heart” can open up to the world. And, perhaps because he comes from one of the Baltic countries born from the break up of an empire, from an ideological vacuum to be filled, Tode succeeds in telling us something new about our era, about the contemporary human condition.

Untitled (2015) by Renee Altrov

In this context, Estonia, like a large part of Eastern Europe, is on its way to becoming a place of innovation also in the arts. As if the trauma of change, the collapse of an imposed identity, has turned into curiosity and an interest in the new. Into the ability to open up to the world with the knowledge that culture and art are effective tools against nationalist protectionism. The Estonian tradition of artistic encounters and exchanges is yet another example of this. Outside the old city of Tallinn, for example, you can visit the Kadriorg Palace and park (symbolically now home to the foreign art collection), designed in the eighteenth century by the Italian architect Niccolò Michetti for Peter the Great.

Hydrostatic Object. Monochromatic Paint (2015) by Sten Eltermaa

And stepping forward in time, we uncover the connection established between Estonian artists and Italy at the end of the nineteenth and beginning of the twentieth centuries. The painter Ants Laikmaa, for example, had planned to stay in Capri for just a day and was instead induced by the beauty of the island to remain there for a year and a half. Others, like Konrad Mägi, spent several months in Italy in the early twenties, giving life to a creative phase that enriched Estonian painting with Venetian images, Roman landscapes and views of Capri.

Small untitled knitting (2015) by Ulvi Haagensen

Today – as this collection of 140 10x12 cm works testifies – the Estonian artists offer a courageous vision composed of private and political, social and anthropological, physical and symbolic perspectives. A collection of perceptions – some poetic, some cutting – that aim (proudly) to overcome the ideological and psychological boundaries that survived the fall of the Wall. To facilitate the consolidation of an Estonian identity with their dizzying espousal of the contemporary world.