Photography news in the Baltics
Although in the current conditions we mostly enjoy cultural events digitally, the photographic life in the Baltics has not stopped at all. In the new article series FK Magazine will offer a summary of the most recent photography events in the neighbouring countries.
LITHUANIA
- Jillian Edelstein, Stories from the Land, Stories from the Sea
Martynas Mažvydas National Library of Lithuania, 8 October – 21 November
The exhibition of the internationally acclaimed British photographer Jillian Edelstein can be seen at the National Library of Lithuania in Vilnius. This is her first exhibition not only in Lithuania, but also in the wider Central and East European region. “It fuses personal biography and documentary records to explore the crossroads between the current refugee crisis in Europe and the historical mass migration unfolding across diverse geographies. The project harnesses memory, archive and contemporary photography to probe the legacies, politics and stories of displacement that remain pressingly relevant today,” says the media.
- Celebrate for Change
MO Museum of Modern art, Vilnius, 4 September – 27 February 2022
“We participate in state, ideological or religious, mass or personal celebrations, but do we often think about their significance?” ask the organizers of the exhibition. Works of Lithuanian photographers and contemporary artists of various generations from MO and other collections are included in the exhibition. Artistic photography will be complemented by documentary material on subcultures: from hippies to current youth movements. It is the subcultures that are characterized by the authentic festive culture and its alternative forms. Curators of the exhibition – Tomas Pabedinskas and Ugnė Paberžytė.
- Arūnas Kulikauskas, Twelve Seasons
Vilnius Photography Gallery, 20 October – 20 November
The exhibition Twelve Seasons offers an insight into the creative work of Lithuanian photographer A. Kulikauskas for almost four decades. In terms of the content, the main parts consist of three stages of work – the last years of the Soviet period, 20 years of creative search while living in New York, as well as 10 years after returning to Lithuania, in the countryside. The exhibition is designed as a single story, revealing the context of the author’s life and work.
- Aleksandras Ostašenkovas, Journey to Memory / Another Shore
Photography Museum, Vilnius, 15 October – 12 Decemeber
Two series of photographs by Aleksandras Ostašenkovas can be seen at the Photography Museum in Vilnius. The photographs, full of symbols of the flow of time and ambiguous metaphors, talk about a person’s quiet world, his existence, state and inner feelings. “The author’s works reveal the unusual relationship between memory and photography. Non-informative, as if empty photos are the most meaningful and emotional works of Ostašenkovas,” says Tomas Pabedinskas.
ESTONIA
- Nick Brandt, This Empty World / Inherit the Dust
Fotografiska Tallinn, 3 September – 20 February 2022
In this exhibition, English photographer Nick Brandt continues his usual themes – the destruction of African nature is reflected, conveying a world in which fleeing animals have no room left for survival. The internationally acknowledged Brandt is hoping to use his work to increase awareness of the ongoing destruction, by allowing the audience to decide whether they have the energy to take action so that we can prevent the worst that can be done by mankind. Anyone of us can choose a better, more humane, compassionate, and sustainable path on this planet, taking small steps as well as bigger steps.
- Arno Rafael Minkkinen, Two Hundred Seasons
Fotografiska Tallinn, 24 September – 30 January 2022
The exhibit displays work and photographs from the period between 1970 and 2020 of numerous places across thirty countries around the world, including thirty US states. This creation by Arno Rafael Minkkinen comes across as a form of pure poetry which is lasting. It is kind of like a modern tribute to the relationship between nature and mankind. Minkkinen’s work can be found in the collections of over seventy-five top museums and institutions, such as the Centre Pompidou or the Maison Européenne de la Photographie in Paris, and the Museum of Modern Art in New York.
- Maisie Cousins, Rubbish, dipping sauce, grass, peony, bum
Fotografiska Tallinn, 8 October – 27 February 2022
The exhibition introduces three projects to visitors to Fotografiska to which Maisie Cousins has been dedicated over the past five years. The hyper-realistic compositions of Maisie Cousins picture everyday objects from our domestic environment which have been turned into hallucinatory images: bright, bold, and alluring. The macrophotography which Cousins undertakes serves to convey the world in its purest form. From crushed fruit, magnified body parts, and beautiful plants, to jelly slime, beetles, and the leftovers of a pasta dish which have been decorated with plastic babies, these compositions force the audience to choose whether they find these details pleasurable or repulsive.
- Sanni Saarinen, Kohti : Towards
Museum of Photography, Tallinn, 5 November – 27 February 2022
Sanni Saarinen is a photographer and cultural anthropologist from Finland. “Kohti is a Finnish word meaning ‘towards’, but I translate it into the act of trying to reach something. I study those moments where seemingly nothing happens, but in a way, all of life happens. I am interested in questions of shared memories, of family, of growth, of passing of time and of the border between the imagined and the real, what really happened and how we experience it,” tells the author.
