Contemporary art exhibition for children
From 9 August 2024 until 2 February 2025 an international contemporary art exhibition for children titled “The Secrets of the Leaning Building” takes place at the Tartu Art Museum. Interactive artworks made in collaboration between acclaimed artists and local children allow visitors to create their own art on the spot, invent new rules and travel through the walls.
The exhibition will be on display throughout the three floors of the museum, as well as in Holm Park, where visitors can explore multisensory artworks. The exhibition consists mainly of new works of contemporary art made especially for this exhibition which provoke exciting encounters, allowing for the development of self-expression and cooperation. There is also much to discover in the Treasury of Views, consisting of art chosen together with children from the museum’s collections, as well as in the Story Attic, containing a thematic selection of children’s books.
The exhibition is united by various spatial solutions: in the Leaning Building, full of secrets, hidden windows have been opened up and new passages and nooks have been created, which visitors of all ages can discover. During the exhibition, the entrance on the Town Hall Square will also be open.
Participants: Jaakko Autio (Finland), Simon and Tom Bloor (UK), William Forsythe (USA, Germany), Kristiina Hansen and Sigrid Viir (Estonia), Jarõna Ilo (Estonia), Anna-Liisa Kree (Estonia), Leisure: Meredith Carruthers and Susannah Wesley (Canada), Lundahl & Seitl (Sweden), Johanna Sternfeld, Karolin Kägi and Jaan Tamkivi from the Vivita Creativity Accelerator for Kids and Youths (Estonia), the Baltic Engagement Center of Information Disorders and the Bullying-Free School Foundation (Estonia). The works of nearly 30 artists from the collections of the Tartu Art Museum and the Art Museum of Estonia, as well as thematic books from more than 40 authors, will also be exhibited.
Curator: Hanna-Liis Kont
Exhibition architect: Kaisa Sööt
Graphic design: Laura Merendi
Young guides: Lenna Aasamäe, Saima Friedenthal, Sille Kriis, Ajinkya Shailendra Kulkarni, Olivia Link, Ula Jore Noreikaite, Jasper Pertsev, Markus Raamik, Mattias Raamik, Maria Tamm
Artists
Simon & Tom Bloor (both born in Birmingham, UK, 1973) are artists who make sculptures and installations for and about public space that can often be used, occupied or otherwise interacted with by people. Their works address the histories and fabric of the built environment and our social relationships with it. Running throughout their practice is a playful optimism about how the often maligned urban landscape is used by us, its inhabitants.
Leisure (Canada)
Leisure is a research-based collaborative art practice between the Canadian artists Meredith Carruthers (1975) and Susannah Wesley (1976), based in Montreal. Working together under the name “Leisure” since 2004, their approach includes archival research, interviews with artists and site visits. In addition, they extend their own conversation and collaboration to include historical subjects, family members and community participants. The resulting projects are multidisciplinary in format: workshops, published texts, interactive installations, and object-making involving a variety of media. Wesley and Carruthers are currently working on a precedent-setting collaborative PhD candidacy in Concordia University's Individualized Program.
→ Lundahl & Seitl (Sweden)
Lundahl & Seitl are Swedish artists who live and work in Stockholm. Their immersive solo projects reinterpret the exhibition as interpersonal processes via choreography, matter and time.
Christer Lundahl (1978) studied at Central Saint Martins College of Art and Design and later at Konstfack in the Transdisciplinary Studio.
Martina Seitl (1979) studied Choreography with Performance Art at Middlesex University and later at Konstfack in the Transdisciplinary Studio.
Together they formed Lundahl & Seitl in 2003, a transdisciplinary collaboration exploring art’s ability to form nomadic imagined communities, acting as a tool for personal and social change. Rooted in research, each project is specific to a particular context and situation.
→ Jaakko Autio (Finland)
Jaakko Autio (1981) is a Finnish sound artist who works in the field of contemporary art. His works have appeared in solo and group exhibitions and at festivals in Finland and abroad. Autio is from Ylivieska, Finland, but spent his childhood in Mmbour, Senegal. This dual origin is manifested in Autio’s way of perceiving reality and creating art. Autio’s works reflect the space between people, unpredictability and empathy. They take a stand on identity, dismantle hierarchies and challenge established ways of being. In his sound art, Autio amplifies the voices of minorities, marginalised groups and representatives of alternative perspectives.
Kristiina Hansen and Sigrid Viir (Estonia)
Kristiina Hansen (1986) graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts with a BA in Photography (2008) and an MA in Contemporary Art (2012) and studied at the Bergen Academy of Art and Design (2009). As an artist, Hansen has played with meaning and poetic imagery, mostly in the form of photography or installation. She is interested in how materials, objects and buzzwords with different properties change their shape and meaning when they meet, creating unexpected contexts and writing new stories. A recurring theme in her work is aspiration when its object is unclear or irrelevant. Since 2020, Kristiina Hansen has been working in the Department of Photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts.
Sigrid Viir (1979) is a photo and installation artist who lives and works in Tallinn. She studied cultural theory at the Estonian Institute of Humanities and graduated in photography from the Estonian Academy of Arts. As an artist, she is interested in the analysis of social constructions, the absurdity of everyday situations, the development of different roles for people (especially women), the border between the totality of work and personal leisure, and questions of visual language. Sigrid is one of the three founding members of the art collective Visible Solutions LLC. She has actively participated in exhibitions in Estonia and abroad.
Anna-Liisa Kree (Estonia)
Anna-Liisa Kree is an artist who sees her work as part of a personal reflection and therapeutic process that manifests itself in analogue photography. Social equality and acceptance, especially dealing with societal prejudices against children with intellectual disabilities, are central to her work. The works are made in collaboration with her own children, one of whom has Down’s syndrome. Emphasising human similarities rather than differences, she invites us to reflect on our values and prejudices. She studied photography at the University of West London (2010) and contemporary art at the Estonian Academy of Arts (2024).
Jarõna Ilo (Estonia)
Jarõna Ilo (1955) is an Estonian artist of Ukrainian origin. She studied at the Industrial Graphics Technical University in Kyiv and the Prague Film School, and graduated from the Estonian Academy of Arts in 1981. Ilo has taught drawing at the Estonian Academy of Arts, the Old Town Education College, the Viljandi Culture Academy and the Australian National University in Canberra. She has illustrated several books, the best known of which are Carlo Colloni’s Pinocchio or the Adventures of a Wooden Puppet (1989) and Piia Ausmann’s Important Things (2008).
In 2017, Jarõna Ilo began conducting art therapy workshops in Ukraine, primarily for children, but also for teachers and school psychologists. In 2022, workshops led by Jarõna Ilo were held in Estonia for young people from Ukraine. The aim of the art therapy activities was to support students’ adaptation and mental health, and to find better contact with their teachers.
→ William Forsythe (USA, Germany)
William Forsythe (1949, New York) has been active in the field of choreography for over fifty years. His work is acknowledged as reorienting the practice of ballet from its identification with classical repertoire to a dynamic 21st century art form. Forsythe’s deep interest in the fundamental principles of the organisation of choreography has led him to produce a wide range of projects, including installations, films and web-based knowledge creation.
The development, as well as the national and international exhibitions of William Forsythe’s Choreographic Objects are made possible with the generous support of Susanne Klatten.
Participating Partners
→ Vivita Creativity Accelerator for Kids and Youths (Estonia)
Vivita Creativity Accelerator for Kids and Youths has been operating in Estonia since 2018 and is part of a global network. Vivita has no teachers and no formal curriculum. The activities are led by the children themselves, the learning is self-led and participatory, and the decision-making processes are democratic. Adult mentors play a supportive and inspiring role on this journey. In this way, for five years Vivita has implemented a methodology that enables learners to take responsibility for their own learning, and has supported independent learning and an approach that takes into account the interests and abilities of each learner. Vivita’s invention labs are aimed at primary school children and the studios and workshops are free of charge for children.
→ Bullying-Free School (Estonia)
The mission of the Bullying-Free School Foundation is to create a safe and caring educational journey for Estonia’s children to grow up to be happy human beings by preventing and stopping bullying. To this end, the Bullying-Free School in Estonia disseminates the research and evidence-based anti-bullying programme KiVa, assists schools in adopting anti-bullying measures, and aims to raise awareness about bullying and ways to reduce and control it.
The Bullying-Free School is based on the vision that by 2035 Estonian society will be more aware of how to create and maintain safe and caring relationships at school, where bullying has no place.