Some examples of young Estonian photography
	Laura Kuusk

	During the last decade, the first generation of artists to acquire a university education in photography in Estonia emerged. Studying photography has been possible here since 1998 at the Academy of Arts and, since 2000, at the Tartu Art College. (1) As for schools, today’s young photographers are the students of the members of the legendary Faculty of Taste. Its main advocates, Peeter Linnap and Eve Kiiler, later chaired the respective photography departments at the Tartu Art College and the Estonian Academy of Arts. The current professor of the Academy’s photography department Marco Laimre is also a disciple of the Faculty of Taste. However, equally important have been the artists’ personal choices in connection with exchange studies in various other European countries. For example, Marge Monko studied in Austria, Tanja Muravskaja and Krista Mölder in Great Britain, Anu Vahtra and Helen Melesk in Holland, Reio Aare in Denmark, and Anna Hints in Lithuania. Although this kind of geographical distribution is not the best basis for generalisation, it still gives an overview of sorts. Is young Estonian photography conservative? In order to answer this question we should find out if young Estonian art is conservative? Or even better, are young Estonians conservative? I think we are – we do not have our parents’ overflowing romanticism, the desire for bright colours of the young in the 1980s or the extreme liberalism of the 1990s. Young Estonian photography of the 1990s stood out for its innovative spirit, eagerly making use of every single new opportunity, whereas the photography of today, ie in 2007, is perhaps more focused, and thus less direct. Not everything new and fascinating is used just because it’s available; instead, young photographers have found their own means of expression – be it classical portrait photography, narrative series, installation, video or conceptual photography. In a sense, young Estonian photography can therefore be regarded as more conservative compared with the previous decade(s), but I would rather call it an increasing awareness of choices.
	Whatever happens in photography is obviously connected with the processes taking place in society, and the neo-liberal zeal of the previous decade has been replaced by a more moderate scepticism. The photography of post-communist Estonia tackled, through opposition, state symbols, and we see politically or socially charged works even now (the works of Marge Monko, Tanja Muravskaja, Kalev Vapper, Taavi Piibemann and Kaisa Eiche etc); quite different are the authors who prefer to emphasise the visual or intuitive aspect (Krista Mölder, Margot Kask, Anna-Stina Treumund, Anu Vahtra et al). As for the ‘political wing’ of young Estonian photography, the first to spring to mind is Kalev Vapper’s Let us adorn the Estonian homes with a picture of Savisaar. (2) By showing a picture of Edgar Savisaar, leader of the Centre Party, Kalev Vapper caused a little media scandal. His work was removed from the exhibition and Kalev was asked to explain his action on TV, where he declared that everything concerning his work becomes part of it, including the TV programme where he was asked to participate. Vapper’s work relied on the fact that Savisaar’s picture had become an empty symbol, to be filled with whatever.
	Vapper’s work approached state symbols from a media reflective perspective, whereas Tanja Muravskaja’s Positions [see back cover. Ed] deals with the relations between the artist and the state. Muravskaja – an Estonian artist of Ukrainian origin – had young Estonian artists pose naked with the national flag, in order to examine positions that the artists take in regard to the national symbol. Criticism of the consumer society is still popular as well. Taavi Piibemann’s/Kaisa Eiche’s Prostheses/Would you buy it examines the connections between Christian symbols and consumption. Juxtaposing Christ, a rubber doll and a shop window mannequin creates a critical message in the vein of Eisenstein’s montage. The aforementioned works can be called political, whereas the artificially created ‘second wing’ is made up of works with more social or psychological emphasis. Compared with Piibemann’s/Eiche’s work, where the narrative is formed by comparing random elements, Reio Aare uses a more classical narrative practice. His series are dominated by the principle of unity between place and time. Works examining such archetypal topics as death and love constitute, both photographically and contextually, cleansed stories that the viewer fills with his or her own (viewing) experience.
	Marge Monko’s Tell Me is trying to (de/re)construct Lacan’s discourse of hysterics. Monko employs photography as psychoanalysis, and her works constitute an attempt to locate herself and others (women) within the prescribed discursive frames, be these gender roles, professions or other power relations. Anna-Stina Treumund, on the other hand, whose works can also be called psychological portraits, examines the topics of sexuality and femininity from an intimate perspective. Treumund focuses on visual practices, without including psychoanalytical or feminist theories. As for more conceptual works, Anu Vahtra’s Fictional Travel: Escaping Disreality is a bridge between psychological and topographical photography. It consists of photos of Internet cafes that the out-of-focus ‘compulsory’ tourist pictures in the same place. The travel described in the work took place through relocation in a physical room, and through relocation within the artist herself.
	In Vahtra’s approach the author is explicitly part of the work (posing as a model in some photographs), but Margot Kask’s works dealing with memory of place examine space from a poetic distance. Kask’s Conscious Places. Library shows empty shelves in a library as condensers of human memory and labyrinths of knowledge. These hallucinatory corridors, rooms and spaces between shelves are potential places of images, containing a chance to spread out in every direction as in a honeycomb. Although the photo as an object in young Estonian photography is considered to be a neo-conservative tendency, there are, of course, other types of works. Alan Proosa produced a photographic work that literally vanished from under the viewer’s eyes. His diploma work at Tartu Art College was the installation Register of Oblivion. It was an installation where the emulsion peeled off the photo paper within a week and the photographs disappeared. Antiquarian photos, shots forgettable even when they still existed, were presented to the viewer in Proosa’s installation, only to vanish for good. In fact the viewer in rubber boots walked through a huge film developing tub, which here was a gallery space turned into a vanishing tub.
	The relative conservatism of young Estonian photography, mentioned at the beginning of the article, upon closer inspection gives way to a diversity of details. It is a question of the degree of insight and comparison. Maybe Peeter Linnap’s prediction that broad and interdisciplinary education eases the problems of Estonian art and photography is coming true. (3) However, occasionally young Estonian photography is still very conservative. The issue here is the strengthening of traditions and finding oneself. Young Estonian photography has definitely raised its head, the first failed attempt at flight has passed, and the time has come to take to the air. 1 It was also possible to acquire photographic higher education before that – as a vocational secondary education at Tartu Art School, at various courses at the Estonian Academy of Arts and as vocational education at Tallinn School of Communication 2 The title refers to the first line of the popular song Estonian Flag: “Let us adorn the Estonian homes with three colours of home.” 3 See about the history of Estonian photography at http://www.estonica.org/eng Laura Kuusk (1982), BA in semiotics and culture studies at Tartu University, currently doing her MA in photography at the Estonian Academy of Arts
	| Estonian Art 1/07 (20) | Published by the Estonian Institute 2007 | ISSN 1406-5711 (Online) | ISSN 1406-3549 (Printed version) | einst@einst.ee | tel: (372) 631 43 55 | fax: (372) 631 43 56 |