WHAT MAKES ANOTHER WORLD POSSIBLE? Curated by Corina L. Apostol, Kunstihoone Tallinn, Estonia September 18 – December 5, 2021

Installation view: Dance As a Weapon (2020 “Studies in Movement Across National Ideologies of War and Resistance” series of 70 works, watercolor on paper, dimensions variable) at What Makes Another World Possible? curated by Corina L. Apostol, Kunstihoone Tallinn, Estonia, photo #1-2 by Paul Kulmet

On Friday, 17 September, an exhibition entitled What Makes Another World Possible? will open at Tallinn Art Hall, which looks at socially engaged art in the last decade and the role of art in social and political struggles. The exhibited works provide an overview of how art has been used as a tool for shaping society in the last decade.

Corina L. Apostol, the curator of the exhibition, remarks that when compiling the exhibition she was guided by the belief that artists contribute to some of the most crucial debates of our times and that their voices are significant in shaping society and imagining how it could be different. “The work of the artists in this exhibition brings together the various facets of art, activism and global politics,” she says. 

 The exhibition includes works by 14 artists or groups from Estonia and abroad: Alina Bliumis, Zach Blas, Chto Delat?, Vala T. Foltyn, Núria Güell, Sandra Kosorotova, Kristina Norman, Daniela Ortiz, Tanja Ostojić, Lia Perjovschi, Dan Perjovschi, Dushko Petrovich, Urmas Viik and Ala Younis.

 Corina L. Apostol is the co-author of Making Another World Possible (Routledge, Creative Time), which was published in 2019. Both the book and the exhibition examine ten global issues through the prism of socially engaged art projects, including: the militarisation of society, the proliferation of surveillance, entrenched economic inequalities, rising social movements, the displacement of peoples, cosmopolitics, anti-racism struggles, creative education in crisis, queerness and political expression, and new devices enabling political action.

 “The global pandemic has only amplified many of these urgent issues, and interest in socially engaged art has grown: it has moved from the margins of the art world to being a central part of the discussion on contemporary art and politics,” Corina L. Apostol says.

 Rather than attempting a global survey, the adaptation of this book into a physical exhibition seeks to raise fundamental questions that initiate conversation and contribute to the understanding of socially engaged art both in Estonia and abroad. The exhibition gives an idea of which current issues speak to artists and how art is responding to the present political questions and relating to the global situation here and now.

 The exhibition combines different yet interconnected artistic notions and is not only a place for presenting art, but also a space for learning and exploring. Together with the exhibition, Tallinn Art Hall is launching a unique series of successive educational programmes for students of general education schools, entitled School of Perception. Further information on the website of Tallinn Art Hall.

 Choreographers Joanna Kalm and Nele Suisalu will give a performance at the opening of the exhibition at 6:30 pm, entitled Myrtle Sisters: To Health.

Alina Bliumis, NARRATING AGAINST THE GRAIN Curated by Corina L. Apostol, Tallinn Art Hall, Estonia, July 17 - September 6, 2020

Where would you go if you wanted to see the centre of Europe? What are the traits of the average global citizen? What happens to our families when our political views are crossed? How can differences among us be re-defined in ways that enable resistance and creative activity for cultural change?

 The “Narrating Against the Grain” exhibition features new commissions by Alina Bliumis and Tanja Muravskaja and will be open from 17 July until 6 September at Art Hall Gallery. The exhibition opening will take place on 16 July at 5 pm.

 “Nations themselves are narrations,” observed Edward Said in Culture and Imperialism (1993), a statement that holds true in our current time. While conflicts continue to be waged over the ownership of land (and resources), issues of who has the right to work, live, settle and travel, and indeed the question of a nation’s future, are nevertheless echoed, challenged or even decided upon in narratives, both written and visual.

 This exhibition brings together two artists who share the experience of growing up in Soviet Eastern Europe as well as a thematic interest in transcending borderlines, the constructed-ness of national identity, the entanglement of art and politics and the im/mobility of migrants. The global refugee reception crisis as well as the dramatic transformations in Europe during the pandemic have been catalysts for these artists to create artistic narratives that go against the grain and engage with forms of being in-between geographies and the struggle over self.

With humour and empathy, this project, the first collaboration between artists Alina Bliumis and Tanja Muravskaja, will introduce inventive forms of togetherness at the intersection of art, politics and education. The project specifically consists of a physical presentation of photographs and interviews of life under the pandemic with at-risk, vulnerable, resilient members of society, a series of banners emblazoned with different types of big cats from national passport covers presented at the gallery and partner cultural institutions (including Nõmme Cultural Centre, Estonian Art Academy, Museum of Photography, Tallinn Russian Museum) posters of different centres of Europe highlighting the shifting definitions of borders, and more.

 While the physical exhibition will take place at the Art Hall Gallery and across Tallinn, the curator and artists will also engage audiences in lively online discussions on the consequences of the emergency state and reflect on the challenges and opportunities of mutual aid and solidarity, as well as new modes of engaged citizenship.

 The exhibition will grapple with the possibilities that art and culture offer and respond to current reimaginings over citizenship and homelands. Building upon the experiences of two artists who share a personal history of migration across cultures and borders that have greatly influenced their work, the exhibition will help facilitate exchanges that will have a lasting effect upon public opinion. Ultimately, “Narrating against the grain” aims to reflect upon the contingencies of our time, urging all of us to take an active role as agents of change.

COSMOPOLITICS, COMRADESHIP, AND THE COMMONS, Shelter festival, Helsinki, Finland Curated by Corina L. Apostol, Ksenia Yurkova and Anastasia Vepreva June 7-9, 2019

EXPLORING ENVIRONMENTAL PHILOSOPHY, ECOFEMINISM, QUEER ECOLOGY AND ECOLOGICAL RESILIENCE THROUGH KEY PROJECTS BY INTERNATIONAL ARTISTS, SOME ON VIEW FOR THE FIRST TIME IN FINLAND.

This year the festival will consider some of the most pressing issues of our times under the conceptual umbrella of eco-feminism, queer ecology, environmental philosophy, and ecological resilience. Entitled "Cosmopolitics, Comradeship, and the Commons" the 2019 festival-laboratory will feature diverse works including performance, installation art, poetry, film screenings, as well as discussions, artistic research, and an online publication bringing together artists and cultural practitioners from the Scandinavian countries, the Baltic Region, Eastern Europe, Russia, and beyond. Drawing on Isabelle Stengers' concept of "Cosmopolitics," where diverse stories, perspectives, and practices connect to lay the foundation for new strategies and radical possibilities, the Festival will act as a temporary commons for diverse approaches to the ecological crisis and its economic, social, and cultural affects and effects.

The festival invited artists, activists, educators, musicians, and all cultural producers in the greater Helsinki area and beyond to propose projects at the intersection of deep ecology, climate resilience, environmental philosophy, ecofeminism, and socially engaged practice.

Russian performative and experimental musical collective Techno-Poetry (Roman Osminkin, Anton Komandirov, Marina Shamova); Sweden-based art-collective HAMNEN (artist and filmmaker Klængur Gunnarsson; artist Maria Safronova Wahlström; artist Josef Mellergård; award-winning filmmaker, journalist and writer Johannes Wahlström); ex-academic turned video essayist Natalie Wynn based in the US; artist, activist and filmmaker Oto Hudec based in Slovakia; collaborating Romanian artists Anca Benera and Arnold Estefan; artist and filmmaker Oliver Ressler based in Austria; curator and art critic Raluca Voinea based in Romania; Sami artist, author and journalist Máret Ánne Sara based in Norway; Polish poetic choreographer, performance maker, curator of experiences Valentine Tanz/ Vala Tomasz Foltyn based in Denmark; UK-based art historians and curators Maja and Reuben Fowkes; and Belarusian-American artist Alina Bliumis are amongst this year's participants.

More than 20 participating artists, musicians, curators and theoreticians were selected via an international open call: Anna Sopova and Antanas Jatsinevichys (Russia); Inês Tartaruga Água (Portugal); Ipek Burçak (Turkey); Collective HEXY (Justyna Jakóbowska, Roksana Kularska-Król, Justyna Stopnicka) (Poland); Lea Roth (Germany); Laurene Bois-Mariage (Finland); Maria Veits (Russia/ Israel); Andréa Stanislav (US); Axel Straschnoy (Finland); Vo Ezn (Georgia); Mathilda Franzén (Sweden); Natalia Skobeeva (Russia/ Belgium); Rabota (Marika Krasina & Anton Kryvulia) (Germany/ Belarus); Roman Golovko (Russia); Silvia Amancei and Bogdan Armanu (Romania); Susi Disorder (United Kingdom); Saša Nemec (Slovenia/ Finland); Taisia Korotkova (Russia); Valerii Shevchenko (Russia); Vera Kavaleuskaya (Finland/ Belarus); Verneri Salonen (Finland); zh v yu (Natasha Zhukova, Katya Volkova, Dasha Yurychuk) (Russia).

The festival also presents the Suoja/Shelter Reader, a compilation of educational materials in conversation with the performances, art installations, films, music, and discussions taking place throughout the festival. The Reader has been put together by the festival curator and organizers. The reader also contains a themed glossary of terms.

Suoja/ Shelter is held at the Space for Free Arts under the Auspices of the University of the Arts Helsinki (UNIARTS). It is supported by the City of Helsinki, the Finnish Cultural Foundation (SKR), and the Arts Promotion Center Finland ( TAIKE). Spanning three full days of programming between June 7-9 at the public shelter turned into the Space For Free Arts/ Vapaan Taiteen Tila in the Sörnäinen neighbourhood of Finland's capital, the festival is free and open to the public. It is curated by Corina L. Apostol, an independent curator and writer based in New York/US and Constanța/Romania, together with artist and curator Ksenia Yurkova (Finland/ Russia) and artist and curator Anastasia Vepreva (Russia).