Events

Curator tours for the exhibition “Unbounded within – Symbiotic Subjectivities” at the Pärnu Artists' House will take place on: Wednesday, June 3 at 4:00 PM Saturday, June 13 at 4:00 PM The tours are FREE OF CHARGE! You are warmly welcome! The tours will be held in Estonian and/or English, depending on the participants. Curator Elo Liiv

On Thursday, 4th of June at 6 pm a group exhibition “Phantom of the Paradise”, will open at Vaal Gallery. The exhibition will remain open until 4th of July, Tue–Fri 12–6 pm and Sat 12–4 pm. The exhibition “Phantom of the Paradise” examines the contemporary condition in which the human beings increasingly experience themselves as a project that must be constantly developed, improved, and reshaped. Philosopher Byung-Chul Han has described the modern individual as a self-exploiting being whose imagined freedom manifests through self-management, control and endless optimization. Ambivalence, loss, mourning, confusion, or stillness are treated as problems that must be solved, corrected, or overcome.

Estonian artist Maria Kapajeva will open her largest solo exhibition to date at the Tallinn Art Hall’s Lasnamäe Pavilion on 28 May at 6 pm. Titled I Am a Border, the exhibition brings together 16 works created between 2014 and 2026, many of them produced specifically for this show. Admission is free. The exhibition is the culmination of more than a decade of artistic research into the border as a geographical, bodily, and emotional phenomenon.

Mara Kirchberg’s installations and performances at the exhibition My Weight Hangs in Your Arms at the Draakon Gallery, 15 May–14 June 2026. Mara Kirchberg’s solo exhibition examines the technologisation of care. At the heart of the exhibition is the metaphor of the body as a machine. The automotive industry has shaped not only the technical equipment of care work, but also its organisation, treating humans as mechanical systems. The conceptual framework of Kirchberg’s exhibition is petromodernity, which characterises the current material world, overwhelmingly fueled by crude oil. While the oil economy has prolonged human life expectancy, the imminent end of Earth’s fossil fuel supply creates fear and imperialist wars. However, fears are also known to provoke fetishised desires.

On Friday, 15 May at 5:00 p.m., the Tartu Artists’ Union’s first spring exhibition will open in three galleries at the Tartu Art House. The spring exhibition brings together, for the first time, works exclusively by members of the association. The exhibition brings together artists from different generations, focusing on the differences and similarities between them. There will be 104 members of the Tartu Artists’ Union participating in the exhibition. 

On Friday, 15 May at 5:00 PM, the artist Leena Kuutma will open the exhibition How We All Go in a Line Like This at the Vabaduse Gallery. The title of the exhibition has been borrowed from Urmas Vadi’s book of the same name, which followed Leena Kuutma around for some time and resulted in these lines:  “Moving forward is the only thing there is. He pushes on, and on, falls from time to time, then lifts his face from the mud, wipes his hands and continues the journey. All sorts of things happen along the way: lightness and bright sunshine, but also moments when he is only able to lie very quietly in the grass on the rutted path.

In the Anthropocene, the understanding of the "self" as a closed, separate, and autonomous unit is crumbling. Ecological and social crises reveal the fragility of skin, national borders, and interspecies barriers – we are an open system; our selfhood emerges through incessant cooperation and entanglement with other life forms. Symbiotic subjectivity shifts the focus from the human to relationships, replacing the concept of the "individual" with that of "accompaniment." You are not alone; you are a network, an ecosystem. This is an ecocentric turn, where agency no longer belongs solely to the human but is distributed among humans, animals, plants, and technologies.

SANDRA JÕGEVA “BIG BLUE” WRITERS’ HOUSE GALLERY 14.04 – 09.08.2026 On Tuesday, May 5 at 6:00 PM, the painting exhibition “Big Blue” by Sandra Jõgeva will open at the Writers’ House Gallery (Harju St 1). The exhibition presents Sandra Jõgeva’s early paintings from the period before her shift into installation, performance, film, and video art.

Triinu Jürves, Kaarel Kütas, Villem Jahu “BELOW TIME” (painting, objects, video, sound, installations) May 5 – July 12, 2026 Haapsalu Art School Basement Gallery (Jaani 2, Haapsalu)

The spring season of the Narva Art Residency's project “Artists Are Present” will conclude with an open seminar on May 15 at 3 PM at Alex cafe (Linda 2).  The project aims to increase the accessibility and presence of contemporary art in Narva by bringing Estonian-speaking artists into local schools and offering students opportunities to practice the Estonian language.  At the seminar, nine participating artists, along with their mentors and teachers, will share their experiences. The artists are Erki Kasemets, Vaim Sarv, Jevgeni Zolotko, Tea Lemberpuu, Kairi Getman, Trevor Kinna, Kerttu Siplane, Mari Männa and Mia Tamme. Preliminary results of a study on the project’s impact will be presented, and a panel discussion will reflect on its successes and challenges.