They Began to Talk
Kumu Art Museum, Weizenbergi 34 / Valge 1 10127 Tallinn

07/02/2025 – 03/08/2025

Participating artists: Pia Arke, Eglė Budvytytė, Merike Estna, Sofia Filippou & Eline Selgis, John Grzinich, Joanna Kalm, Johann Köler, Ruth Maclennan, Outi Pieski & Biret Haarla Pieski & Gáddjá Haarla Pieski, Mia Tamme, Sasha Tishkov and Vive Tolli.

Curators: Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Hanna Laura Kaljo.

Sasha Tishkov (1989)
Abandoned Axe, Probably Left There by Some Folkloric Creature
2023. Wooden axe handle, fence spikes, onion dyed sisal and oil paint
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

Everything that surrounds us has a voice – exhibition report from the KUMU Art Museum in Tallinn

By Angeliki Tzortzakaki

Few years ago, I had the opportunity  to be part of a collective-driven study group that researched the ever-evolving relationships between ecological transformation, vegetal life, and the intersection of writing and performance.  Among the many texts that we read together – by authors such as Jamaica Kincaid, Teresa Castro, Eduardo Kohn, Ursula K. Le Guin, and others, Linda Hogan’s poems left a lasting impression. 

The Chickasaw novelist, essayist, and environmentalist, wrote extensively against the separation of humankind and nature. In fact, one may have already encountered the often-quoted verse from Dwellings: A Spiritual History of the Living World :“what happens to the people and what happens to the land is the same thing.” I remember very clearly the first time I read those words. As time  passed, I still haven’t found other phrases that speak as simply, but also as adequately and precisely about our present times. In other words, ecocide and genocide always happen at the same time – even as I write these words.  

Colonisation and industrialisation helped normalize the separation of the human experience from the environment. As Elvia Wilk observes in Death by Landscape, the “taxonomy frenzy” created a hierarchy of species that placed the “white Western man at the top.” Unsurprisingly, most of the world’s elite and political leaders continue to embody this narcissistic worldview. As a result, the colonial fear of an unknown environment in its most colonial sense, brings about an urge to tame, control, direct, and govern other(ed) bodies. The suprematist human entitlement over its surroundings is able to anticipate, control and manage resources, or, to put it differently, the earth’s commons. Much of this logic has been loosely justified in the latin Res nullius – a land deemed arid and empty, “belongs to no one” and therefore is free to claim (occupy, steal, annex). Yet, the supposedly vacant land often (always) happens to be home to its indigenous inhabitants, nomadic or otherwise, who, like the ecosystems of which they are part of, exist in intricate reciprocity with the climate. Therefore, in the process of colonial erasure, everything is at stake – people, landscapes, cultures and the fragile links that bind them. And this loss, too profound to articulate, is passed in silence from one generation to another. 

These reflections form the premises of the group exhibition They Began to Talk, which opened a few weeks ago on the top floor of KUMU Art Museum in Tallinn, curated with care by Ann Mirjam Vaikla and Hanna Laura Kaljo. The participating artists, most of whom originate or live in the surrounding area, engage with these themes  in many different ways. The works speak to one another, filling gaps, extending conversations and creating a shared dialogue. When I travelled to Tallinn from Vilnius to attend the opening of the exhibition, most of the conversations revolved around one topic unfolding that very weekend: the disconnection of the three Baltic countries from the Russian electrical grid – a further measure to Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine. 

In the geopolitical line of two colonial wars raging nearby, in Ukraine and occupied Palestine, an exhibition around silencing and erasure acquires further urgency. Art does not stop the bombs, nor can it in any way instigate actual social change. Yet, it remains important to bring decolonial narratives to the forefront, whenever possible, by beginning to talk. 

Fish trap
1923. Willow shoots
Made by: Kustas Tiitsman
Estonian National Museum
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

The exhibition, housed on the top floor of the Pekka Vapaavuori building, perched on a limestone hill, welcomes visitors in darkness. In a double mirrored display of two works, a willow fishing trap in the form of a basket evokes a piercing sense of absence – an ache I feel without knowing where it originates.he braided fishing trap was made by Kustas Tiitsman in 1923 and is now part of the Estonian National Museum’s collection. Hanna Laura Kaljo, co-curator of the exhibition writes in the catalogue that “in Estonia it has been custom to braid traps used for fishing in winter and early spring, from two year old branches”. She also observes several similarities that can be found among fishing traps in several parts of the world and across different times. The ancestry of such an object that attends to the movement of the water and the fish that it is after, is a preamble of another connection, with the carrier, the body that is missing here, and is to be revealed later on. 

Directly opposite, Vive Tolli’s etching Death of a Nightingale (1964) reflects an entire landscape submerged in grief. If the “night singer” stops singing, then what is to be heard? Tolli is often described as a post-war artist. I wonder how we would apply that term today, with the multiple wars and genocides that are taking place. Although very different in scale and in form, the two works create a layered depth of perception, and invite to seek what is yet to be revealed in the next room.

The exhibition follows a certain chronological order, carefully choreographed by the curators. While walking through the rooms, more dimensions unfold in spatial terms. The two channel video installation Guhte gullá – Kohal, et kuulata Here to Hear (2021) by Outi Pieski, Biret Haarla Pieski and Gáddjá Haarla Pieski depicts Biret and Gáddjá dancing and traversing different temporal states. While the dancing continues, the movement is changing as well as their costumes, evoking the unresolved wounds of intergenerational trauma. The projected bodies, though mediated by the screen, felt uncannily present in the room, an impression emphasized by the placement of the screens which made it impossible to look at both simultaneously. Although sitting was not prioritised, I found myself returning to that room several times. 

Outi Pieski (1973) & Biret Haarla Pieski (2000) & Gáddjá Haarla Pieski (2000)
Guhte gullá –Here to Hear
2021. Multi-channel video installation
Duration: 8:30 min
Courtesy of the artists
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

At the centre of the room, a window display features  two ládjogahpirs, the Sámi horn-shaped headdresses  traditionally worn by women. The two headgears faced each other, as they were in conversation before a sudden interruption. Ládjogahpirs were forcibly erased in the late 19th century, along with other duodji, the Sámi handicraft heritage, suppressed by colonial forces,such as the Laestadian church who condemned  it as “evil.” Outi Pieski has done extensive research and ground work to bring attention to the undervalued and often demonised cultural heritage of the Sámi. 

Although the curators had to deal with a topic as vast as the relationship between indigenous and environmental trauma, focusing on certain local her/stories proved to be a clear path where the curatorial research unfolded. One good example is the brilliant black and white photographic series from1994 by Kalaaleq-Danish artist Pia Arke which documents the violence embedded in the history of science imposed by Danish colonialism in Greenland. Nature Morte alias Perlustrations I – X speaks silently about systems of measurement and documentation that appear as scars on the body recalling the often-quoted book by Besser van der Kolk: the body keeps the score. 

John Grzinich (1970)
Geofractions (2024)
2010–2024. Original sound recordings and composition, wood, and an amplified playback
system with speakers and transducers

Bodily perception forms another axis of the exhibition. The exhibition design reflects this intention, most notably with the work of John Grzinich. Geofractions (2024), is the result of a long-term research, presented here as a sound installation in a corridor covered by human-sized vibrating panels. As one approaches, one can sense the frequencies of his sound composition leading up to an extended listening. This corridor, though occupying only a fraction of the museum room, is close to the scale representation of the oil-shale mines in north-eastern Estonia. Over more than a decade of site visits, Grzinich documented the region through field recordings that capture the sounds of extraction, alienation but also the rhythms of the living ecosystems and cultures that sustain the economies with their labour. 

Mia Tamme (1996)
Wedded to Fishing Nets
2023–2025, ongoing process. Installation: creative research presented through an essay film,
archival objects and public programme
Duration of the video: 12:56
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

Another important aspect of invisibilized labour becomes tactile in Mia Tamme’s video installation. Moving across temporalities of gendered roles, the installation sheds light on the fisherwomen of  Hiiumaa island who are a crucial part of the Hiiu heritage and ancestry. Beyond the material nets they have so meticulously knitted, Hiiu women are the carriers of oral and material herstories handed over to the artist’s generation. In the opposite corner of the room, a 1863 watercolour by Estonia’s national painter, Johann Köler, depicts a woman from the island turning her back to the viewer. We might not be able to see the face, but we do see her high headdress, an interesting connection to the previously mentioned ládjogahpir. 

 Tamme’s archival research gathers fragments of history, inviting viewers to consider  the naming and categorisation of such heritage. In a subtle way, by exhibiting a series of hand-made fishing nets borrowed from the Museum of Coastal Folk, Tamme preserves the objects’ nameless archival classification, exactly as they would appear in their former ethnographic display. Language plays an important role in reinforcing these injustices and the artist knows how to subvert it. The work is titled Wedded to Fishing Nets (2023-2025), and can be read in multiple ways: it speaks to the bond that these women developed with the net-making practise while also being stuck in their attributed gendered domestic roles far from the sea life. During the exhibition tour, Tamme referred to these women as “landlocked,” a  strong term that captures  both the metaphorical and literal dimensions of their oppression and lack of freedom. 

Further north, in the taiga forests surrounding Arkhangelsk, and right before the full scale invasion of Ukraine, filmmaker Ruth Maclennan arrived along with a group of artists, scientists and craftspeople, both local and from afar, to explore the transformation of landscapes caused by the exploitation of the region’s mineral resources. The film titled A Forest Tale (2022) poetically documents winter temporalities in the threshold of the arctic, by looking closer at the mundane webs of relationships between the forests, the people and the animals that live in the surrounding areas. As in many other parts of this planet, remote women’s communities in the forests of Arkhangelsk developed polyphonic singing to pass down stories of love and forest life. Maclennan’s filming practice in the arctic has been developing for almost ten years, as she fostered  a strong bond with the inhabitants that strive to resist deforestation imposed by imperial powers. 

Ruth Maclennan (1969)
A Forest Tale
2022. Video
Duration: 32:48 min
Co-commissioned by the Film and Video Umbrella and the Arctic Art Institute
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

Weaving singing with breathtaking landscapes is also present in Eglė Budvytytė’s Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies, Imploding Stars (2020). placed in one of the largest rooms of the exhibition, the work transitions from the darkest rooms and moves towards the light- perhaps a gesture of hope. Filmed in the sand dunes of the Curonian Spit, a narrow strip of land straddling two charged geopolitical territories: the Lithuanian side hosts an artist residency and summer resort while the Russian side remains a military base. The film deflects this tension through a charged poetics of subtle ecoeroticism. Young and eloquent bodies move in synchronicities with the dunes, pine forests and lichens, creating different layers of time and kinship. The works and words of Lynn Margulis and Octavia Butler dissolve into the ever shifting metallic singing voice. 

Eglė Budvytytė (1981)
In collaboration with: Marija Olšauskaitė (1989), Julija Lukas Steponaitytė (1992)
Songs from the Compost: Mutating Bodies, Imploding Stars
2020. 4K video
Duration: 28:10 min
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

The natural light leads me naturally to the next room, where I find the sculptural work of Sasha Tishkov. Tishkov’s landscape memories drawn from different moments of their life, bring together two distinct works that are placed in dialogue with each other. On one hand stands  Abandoned Axe, Probably Left There by Some Folkloric Creature (2023),inspired by Finno-Ungric folklore despite the fact that the artist does not seem interested in specific geographical locations.. In subtle proximity, another sculptural installation claims both horizontal and vertical space. Where the wild dreams are (2023), a title that immediately evokes the tale of Maurice Sendak and its later queer reinterpretation by Jack Halberstam – unfolds as  a landscape full of potential. Rather than a backdrop, as often depicted in colonial representations, here, the landscape is the work. It is a stage of characters, composed of organic and non organic matter that the artist found on the island of Tarifa, a linking point between the African and European continents marked by a long military history. The installation depicts a layered exploration of collecting and object-making, in which the distinction between human-made and natural is often blurred, including the fence spikes embedded in the sisal knotting technique. 

Sasha Tishkov (1989)
Where the Wild Dreams Are
2023. Robinia wood, fence spike, coffee powder, sea salt, wax, sisal and buoy
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

Sasha Tishkov (1989)
Abandoned Axe, Probably Left There by Some Folkloric Creature
2023. Wooden axe handle, fence spikes, onion dyed sisal and oil paint
Courtesy of the artist
Where the Wild Dreams Are
2023. Robinia wood, fence spike, coffee powder, sea salt, wax, sisal and buoy
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

In the last room, I am met by a nearly four by three meter painting. The Nightfall, as Merike Estna titled her painting, was commissioned specifically for this exhibition. The work is a reflection on Estna’s recent  experience of pregnancy and motherhood, rendered through a semi-abstract depiction of the Madonna and child. Although not directly visible to an untrained eye, Estonian craft traditions have been influential in developing her visual language. “The hosting body is longing for connections,” I read through my notes from the curators’ tour of the exhibition. 

Merike Estna (1980)
Nightfall
2024–2025. Acrylic and oil
Courtesy of the artist
Photo: Stanislav Stepaško

“Everything that surrounds us. Everything that is environing, encircling, enveloping us” are words from the Biodegradable Dictionary, compiled by Mirjam Parve for the catalogue of the exhibition offer a circular way towards unlearning. To begin from the first breath as in Estna’s mother figure would help us reapproach the rupture of the nature/culture that the exhibition addresses. To flip everything that surrounds us: language may be one of the first things we need to unlearn. Perhaps with less nostalgia and more urgency.