Opening Programme of the exhibition “They Began to Talk”

From Friday, 7 February, the international group exhibition They Began to Talk will be open in the contemporary art gallery of Kumu Art Museum. The exhibition takes the intertwinement of the body and the environment as its point of departure, in an era marked by rapid environmental change and inequality. They Began to Talk brings together the practices of artists working in this region with those from indigenous communities in the Nordic countries, exploring the possibility of recovering and cultivating a sense of connection. The exhibition continues the Kumu Contemporary Art Gallery’s programme of exhibitions on environmental themes, which began in 2023 with Art in the Age of the Anthropocene. The exhibition is co-curated by Hanna Laura Kaljo and Ann Mirjam Vaikla.  

On Saturday, 8 February, the exhibition opens with a programme of exhibition tours with the curators and participating artists, a conversation on belonging, environmental change and cultural resilience, and the premiere of the audio-visual artist John Grzinich’s full-length participatory performance “Audioswarm: Geofractions”.

Programme: 

14:00 Guided tour of the exhibition led by curators Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Hanna Laura Kaljo, in Estonian
15:00 Guided tour of the exhibition led by artists Sasha Tishkov, Ruth Maclennan and John Grzinich, and curators Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Hanna Laura Kaljo, in English
16:00 Participatory performance “AudioSwarm: Geofractions” by John Grzinich, in English
16:30 Conversation: On Belonging, Environmental Change and Cultural Resilience. Participants: the Finnish environmental sociologist Outi Autti, the British film-maker Ruth Maclennan, and the exhibition’s curators Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Hanna Laura Kaljo, in English

The conversation is supported by the Finnish Institute. 

Find more information about the events on Facebook here and the website of Kumu Art Museum here.