‘Down in the Bog — Sporulation’ (‘Sügaval soos — eoste teke’) – the summer show at Tallinn’s Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) – brings together artists, designers and scientists to engage with the peatlands of Estonia and other regions, including northern Norway.
Curated by Karolin Tampere, a Norwegian curator with Estonian roots, the show is the second in a three-part international exhibition series on bogs, with the first and third parts taking place in the northern Norwegian city of Tromsø.
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Among the highlights are the work of Ensayos, an international nomadic feminist research group that works with scent, sounds and objects to rethink questions of extinction, interspecies dialogue and memory; a joint video piece by Ingrid Bjørnaali, Maria Simmons and Fabian Lanzmaier; Kristina Norman’s work, first shown at the 2022 Venice Biennale, centring on capitalism and the connections between the Estonian bogs and the global orchid market; and Geir Tore Holm and Søssa Jørgensen’s audiovisual project combining video with the song-like Sámi joik, one of Europe’s oldest vocal traditions.
In addition to the exhibition, Tampere is collaborating with cultural geographer Piret Pungas-Kohv and the Estonian Fund for Nature to produce an archival work on the history and perceptions of the local peatlands – including the presentation of an excerpt of Magnus Skei Holmen’s new video work ‘Bogwalk’ (2024).
‘Down in the Bog — Sporulation’ is on at the Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia (EKKM) until 1 September 2024.
