"Happy Together" in Tallinn
Tallinn Art Hall
29. January - 1. March 2009
Vabaduse Square 6
W-M 12 – 6 pm
Opening Reception on WEDNESDAY, January 28 at 6 pm
Opening party in KUKU club at 8 pm:
With Moby Dictator (Fin)
DJ-s
Mika Hannula &
Minna HenrikssonPetra Bauer - performance-lecture Deleted Swedish Stories *
at the Estonian Academy of Arts, on Wednesday, January 28, in room nr. 201,at 2 pm.
YKON Game v.0.3 **
at the Tallinn Art Hall on Saturday, January31from 2 pm – 9pm.
Happy Together is a group exhibition of contemporary visual art, which brings together artists from the Southeast-European, Baltic and Nordic countries. The aim of the exhibition is to explore different situations
in contemporary societies that have their roots in conflict situations, which have emerged from actions, where the collective mind is stronger than the individual.
The exhibition presents a number of prominent contemporary artists and through the range of artistic approaches generates an interesting combination of artworks ranging from drawing to video, installation and performance. What the participating artists all share in their practice is an interest in the topic in question and are approaching it in various, challenging ways.
The participants are: Petra Bauer, Sweden; Birgir Birgisson, Iceland; Igor Grubic, Croatia; Mika Hannula, Finland/Germany; Minna Henriksson, Finland/Turkey; Hanna Jaanisoo, Finland; Villu Jaanisoo, Estonia/Finland; Kiba Lumberg, Finland; Kristina Norman, Estonia; Karl Ingar Roys, Norway; YKON (Ulu Braun, Sasha Huber, Tellervo Kalleinen, Oliver Kochta-Kalleinen, Tomas Träskman), Finland; Katarina Zdjelar, Serbia/The Netherlands; Ahmet Ögut, Turkey/The Netherlands.
Our idea is to create and generate a platform to think through critically yet constructively the idea of a collective and a community. The basic realization that we follow is that collective identities are important and even necessary. The task is to confront them and to work with them to fruitful and tolerant ends.
With this collective effort, with this invitation to think with, we are asking: Who are we when we claim we belong to a certain community? What happens when the sense of belonging to a community becomes more dominant for our actions than our individuality; does being part of a particular community also require that there is an Other outside of it; when is a sense of collective identity constructive and when is it deconstructive, regressive and dangerous; is there even a possibility for a positive and constructive kind of sense of collective identity.
As it has now materialized, in a productive even if unintended way, Happy Together serves as a sort of pre-view to the upcoming Venice Biennial. Three of the participants will be presented at their national pavilions next summer, namely, Norman for Estonia, Ögut for Turkey and Zdjelar for Serbia.
The exhibition is initiated and curated by Mika Hannula, professor for artistic research at the Faculty of Fine, Applied and Performing Arts of the University of Gothenburg and Minna Henriksson, artist living and working in Helsinki and South-east Europe, and organized together with the Centre of Contemporary Art, Estonia and Tallinn Art Hall.
Press release is composed by Mika Hannula and Minna Henriksson.
*Taking as example events in Sweden, historically and in the present day, Bauer argues that societies are to a large extent constructed on information that has been consciously hidden, forgotten or overlooked by history.
**YKON invites you to take part in the pilot version of the YKON Game, which is a world simulation game for 12 to 25 players, and a modern variation of the famous World Game developed by Buckminster Fuller in
the 1960s. Fuller's idea was to create a subversive tool to "make the world work for 100% of humanity in the shortest possible time through spontaneous cooperation without ecological damage or disadvantage to anyone." RSVP info at ykon dot org.
Thanks to: Foundation for Arts Initiatives, , Nordic Council of Ministers, Mondriaan Foundation, Centre for Icelandic Art, The Association of Icelandic Visual Artists (SÍM), Icelandair, Embassy of Sweden in Tallinn, Office for Contemporary Art Norway, Eesti Kultuurkapital, YKON, Embassy of Finland in Tallinn, VIVID, EMARE European Media Artists in Residence Exchange, Fonds BKVB, Pernod Ricard Estonia, Estonian Academy of Arts
More information:
Anders Härm
anders at kunstihoone dot ee
www.kunstihoone.ee
Photos:
Mika Hannula poster from series Just because..., 2009, poster, 60 x 90 cm
Birgir Birgsson photo from series Blond artists, 2009, laminated photo on mdf, 55 x 55 cm
