Two young generation Estonian artists Tonis Saadoja and Flo Kasearu present their works “21.05.09” / “14.06.09”.
Tonis Saadoja’s photo installation “14.06.09” refers to the date of the first mass deportation in Estonia by the Soviet troops in 1941. The photos are taken in Tallinn the same night 68 years later, each portraying an empty crossroad. Although the portrayed locations have individually no specific connection to historic deportation sites, and rather follow a mind construction ,what if it happened today, the pictures are displayed in a sequence from the late 19th century bourgeois suburb towards the modernist Soviet blocks of houses of 1980s.
Presented as a lightbox installation the work physically influences the viewers’ control over the surrounding space, serving as a memorial piece to situations where human control is replaced by force majeure.
The lightbox installation is accompanied by a video work “21.05.09” (aka ESC) by Flo Kasearu referring to an awkward real life incident with escaped hippodrome horses galloping in a desolate Tallinn some years ago on the night of the 21st of May. Being partly a reconstruction of the documentary events the video features a digital high speed graffiti displayed on the facades of Tallinn. The expressive galloping of a symbolic white horse in a desperate boy racer situation leads to a powerful trip through the city presented from a perspective of the invisible persuader.
The third work to the artists’ collaborative project is a textbook featuring thematic quotations from world literature, history books and newspapers, presented as a new collage on copy/paste method by deporting the text from it’s original context. The textbooks are available for pick up from the exhibition venue.
More information about the artists:
http://www.saadoja.ee/
http://www.flokasearu.eu/
Image: Flo Kasearu film “21.05.09” still.
This exhibition is part of the project Experiment & Excellence realised with the support of the Culture 2007-2013 programme of the European Union. Other sponsors: Estonian Embassy in Lithuania, Estonian Ministry of Culture, Center for Contemporary Arts (Tallinn), Novotel.