Exhibition "Kummardu ja kata! / Duck and Cover!" by Mare Tralla and Pam Skelton

On Friday, April 26, 2024 at 5:00 pm, you are invited to Vabaduse Gallery for the opening of the exhibition Kummardu ja kata! / Duck and Cover! by Mare Tralla and Pam Skelton. The exhibition will remain open to visitors until May 22, 2024.

The exhibition borrows its title from the Cold War era personal protection method against the effects of a nuclear explosion Duck and cover practised in the West. Ducking and covering was seen as a useful action offering some degree of protection to persons located outside the radius of the nuclear fireball. Duck and Cover drills and educational films were widely used at schools. The kids in the USSR were taught very similarly.

The exhibition Duck and Cover consists of Pam Skelton’s installation Ukraine Suite (1996–2022) and Mare Tralla’s interactive installation The Orange Box (2022). Both were first shown at a group exhibition Consequences. Art and Activism in the Nuclear Age curated by Iliyana Nedkova at The Out of the Blue Drill Hall in Edinburgh in 2022 which was the culmination of a two-year project about peace, people and planet highlighting the twin existential threats of nuclear weapons and climate chaos.

Artists Pam Skelton and Mare Tralla have collaborated since the 1990s. What connects them is their feminist approach to memory and history, which informs their art practice. The ways they connect with history in their works is different. Tralla often draws on personal memory and lived experience. Pam Skelton’s practice is research lead. Both artists connect history to current political and social concerns. In 1998 Skelton and Tralla co-curated Private Views: Space Re/cognised in Contemporary Art from Estonia and Britain, which was first shown at Exhibition Hall in Rotermann Salt Storage, The Art Museum of Estonia. The exhibition toured to Hungary and was later accompanied by a book of essays edited by Angela Dimitrakaki, Pam Skelton and Mare Tralla published by Women’s Art Library in London (2000).  

Pam Skelton (b. 1949, Harrogate, Yorkshire) is an artist, educator and researcher whose work explores the legacy of conflict in Europe. Exhibitions include Dangerous Places: Ponar, 1995; The X Mark of Dora Newman, 1994-2000; Liquidators (of Chernobyl) 1996-2000; Burning Poems, 2005-2007; Conspiracy Dwellings, 2007-2010, Archive of Exile, 2011, Cartographies of Life and Death, 2013, We Refuse to be Scapegoats, 2021. Skelton lives and works in London since 1992. Website: pamskelton.org

Mare Tralla (b 1967, Tallinn) is queer-feminist artist and activist. Her professional art career started in Estonia in the early 90s, where she was one of the very few conducting a feminist revolution in the field of contemporary art. Drawing from her personal history and everyday experience her practice was in direct critical response to how the transition period of East-European societies affected women. In her art practice she employs and combines a variety of media: video, photography, performance, interactive media, painting and various traditional crafts. As an activist she has been involved with Act Up, London, Catwalk4Power, No Pride in War coalition and LGSMigrants. Her recent performative projects deal with queer experiences, gender issues, HIV stigma, investigate sustainability and economics. Currently Mare Tralla lives and works in Edinburgh. Website: www.tralla.net

Thanks to: Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia, Department of Photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts.

Vabaduse Gallery is supported by the Estonian Ministry of Culture, Cultural Endowment of Estonia and Liviko Ltd.

Additional information:
Vabaduse Gallery
Vabaduse väljak 6, Tallinn
Mon–Fri9 11.00–18.00, Sat 11–17
www.galerii.eaa.ee/vabaduse
E-mail: vabaduse@eaa.ee
Tel: +372 5805 0009