With the combination of weird, dumb, meaningless faces and words, Multistab has been stabbing normative thinking on the illegal and legal walls of the Estonian streets since 2009. Signor Ssick, Karma and Pheriskoop – three artists with disguises, who have never adopted any specific genre or traditional stenciling of graffiti and street art. Instead, they set their base on “destruction of absolute two-sided thought models”. In doing so, their long-nosed, pig-faced, and crocodile-faced characters have made satire, mocking and fun towards linear and limited thought-process, that has already brought them into the keen attention of art enthusiasts and critics. 

This was more than just an interview, a conversation in which everyone took part, expressed and exchanged views and generated points of departure by engaging each other. Due to the pandemic reality of Covid-19, we all hung out on Skype and Pheriskoop joined in at the end of the conversation, as he had fallen asleep on the couch. During the conversation, we did not keep our cameras on, nor did we call anyone by their real names. They talked about their beginning and very recent works, the choice of themes, characters, selection of walls, the process of painting, how they see Estonian and European graffiti and street art and eventually about their way of thinking.    

How have your art activities been going on in these pandemic days? Have you painted any walls this year?

Ssick: Yeah, this year is coming to its end and we have done eight works; five of them on illegal walls and three are commissioned. You know, Karma lives outside of Tallinn, in another city, so all three of us didn’t always paint together. Some we painted together, but the rest either Pheriskoop and I or Karma and I did as pairs. Besides wall painting, Karma and I did one graffiti writing at Paljassaare. It was in April and because of the Covid-19 pandemic, the city was in lockdown, but you know it was summer, it was very sunny outside, and we really wanted to paint something together. So, we did. It’s on an illegal wall, but such a wall, that already had some other street art. And if I say about the commissioned works that we have done this year, they are more focused on the environment and urban life, but the themes of the illegal walls are completely from our own head. For example, Pheriskoop and I did one wall with the theme of a small bug which is very dangerous and is common in Russia, Finland and Estonia. If it bites you, it can cause death, it is as dangerous as the coronavirus. So, this painting represents this region and its forests and its seasons of summer and spring.

That’s nice, coronavirus couldn’t stop your art activities. Let’s talk about your beginning. How did all this start with Multistab?

Karma: In 2008, as far as I can remember, Signor Ssick started his own movement with… was it with your girlfriend at that time, Ssick?

Ssick: No, it wasn’t. She was my classmate from high school, not a crew. We did drawings and writings of the Necker cube. Back then, I only drew like letters, sometimes characters, but it was mostly graffiti. And then I met Karma at Linnahall. I think one of our friends was doing graffiti and painting there with a bunch of other people for his birthday occasion. I asked him first: let’s go and paint something and we painted there, and somehow, I saw the possibility to do something together. Then we sat together and thought – let’s call it Multistab.

Karma: Um, yeah. If I remember correctly, I was quite bored with just painting graffiti letters, and I really wanted to get into character drawing, and then I met Ssick. Back then, the main aim was to draw or paint only our made-up characters. That way, it was like a change in graffiti work for me – from letters to characters. We started with weekly character painting together and went through a lot of paintings. That is how it started a decade ago. In the beginning, it was like a side project that became the main project over time. 

That means you guys had been very passionate at the beginning of your journey. Now it’s more than one decade you have been active in this scene and have attained a lot of attention from the art enthusiasts and critics; could you give some idea about your theme, wall selection and process of artwork?

Karma: Let’s talk about the two standing black and white characters on the old Patarei prison wall. Besides Ssick and I, Pheriskoop was also involved in this work, and this was his first work with us. This was not an abandoned building, but they didn’t use it anymore at that time. It had many, many buildings, and this was one of those walls, and we did it during an art festival. I don’t remember the name of the festival, but it was a legal wall, and as you can see in the picture, we had photos printed on the right side. Ssick’s canvas runs diagonally along the right wall, and the two main characters are painted with spray paint. So, we wanted to make something that fits the place. Basically, we painted two prisoners, and the weird thing is that my grandfather was once in this prison. That is why I somehow wanted to paint something for him, and from the left side of the picture you can see something colourful painted on the wall, which is Pheriskoop’s work, but he was not in Multistab at the time. Through this work, he clicked with us, or, can say the three of us clicked with each other. Eventually, Pheriskoop got his own character and his own vision of doing character graffiti.

Ssick: I remember something from this picture. We did this work as part of the festival called Kultuuritolm or Cultural Dust and were invited to paint or do something basically. It was in 2010, and I think nobody knew us then, so we made a lot of effort there and so on. We really had the intention to transfer our true thoughts to mimic the idea of the prisoners. And the wall was really a nice spot to paint standing characters vertically.

I am also curious about a painting – two figures reading a newspaper.

Karma: Yeah, have you translated the words to that?

Yeah, something like good news and bad news…

Karma: Yes, yes. On the left side the pig (that is Ssick’s character) is reading the bad news. The news about the weather forecast, which shows that it’s raining, and on the lower left side of the newspaper, there is a picture that shows a tree falling on a person. The media in Estonia at the time said that everything was quite bad, and people read this news and started to worry. And, the reflection was that many people left Estonia for better weather, better life, for example they left for Australia, New Zealand, etc. So we were quite fed up with this mindset. I really love living in Estonia, because I know that in autumn and winter, when it gets dark outside, I have something to do inside, like making music, drawing or doing something creative. And I thought that if you say Estonia is a bad place to live and therefore leave, you just do not have much to do if it’s not sunny or warm. So, I wanted to make jokes about these people. So, my character is on the right side. Ssick’s character pig reads the bad news and my character begs him, please let’s go abroad, let’s leave Estonia. (Laughs.)

So, you develop ideas from the media? 

Karma: Not always from the media, something that makes us scoff at painting for fun. For example, the mural from Rummu’s prison wall, on which the three of us worked together. It has three characters. If you zoom in, then you can see that the left character is holding wires, electric wires. The middle character is tearing down buses, and the right one is like eating buses. So, our main idea was to mock the decision of the Tallinn City Office to create a new bus lane on the street where regular cars were not allowed to drive. So, we thought, OK, we will mock this decision with some evil characters. Because the city office wanted to make the city better, and in this way our characters were evil on this wall, and evil will eat up all the buses. It’s like a kind of performance to tear down the buses and demolish the city… (Laughs.)

I am coming to the point of your process of painting and selection of walls. Before I move on, I want to ask you about your pseudonyms – you three took three different names under Multistab.  

Ssick: (Laughs.)

Let me ask Karma first, why did you take this name? 

Karma: (Laughs.) Yeah, I have to start from the beginning. My father has always been interested in metaphysics and spiritual consciousness and everything that has to do with his spiritual thinking. When I was growing up, I always read about destiny and then a lot about karma. Personally, I am not religious, but I really believe in destiny and that some things are really written down in that sense, and eventually karma has become something like my philosophy of life. So, when I started thinking about the tag name, karma just came into my mind, and I chose it as my name. It’s just a gibberish tag and that is how I have become Karma. 

Seems like karma in Buddhist philosophy. What about Signor Ssick?

Ssick: For me graffiti is really intuitive and somehow random. I took that name after I painted some graffiti and character paintings and I wanted a different name for painting the characters, to separate it from writing graffiti letters. At some point I thought I needed a transformation of myself that could be taken in many ways, like ill or crazy or cool or just a tag as a placeholder. In my other tag or graffiti name, I had some letters like “I” and “S”. Then it somehow evolved into ISick, you know what I mean…

No, I don’t know what that means. (Laughs.)

Karma: (Laughs.) It just means that I am sick.

That’s really fun and a very existentialist expression as well. What about Pheriskoop, has he arrived here yet?  

Ssick: No, I don’t know what the problem is, he didn’t answer me yet. 

Okay, I am really interested to know one thing that is written in your book Multistab that the basis of Multistab’s work is “destruction of absolute two-sided thought models”. Does this mean that Multistab criticizes the normative way of binary seeing? Normally people see things as either good or bad, right or wrong, black or white – as if there is no other layer between two folds. Last year I visited the exhibition of Tommy Cash and Rick Ownes at Kumu Art Museum, and their exhibition title was “Damned and Pure”, which is a straight two-folded frame of seeing. So, I am really curious to know what you really meant by that.

Ssick: I think, yes, if you look closely at our works, you will see the reflection of multilayers of thinking, not just the two-sided meaning. Multistab is a shortened form of Multistability which comes from seeing a geometric form or a picture or an image that plays with many perspectives. We are particularly fascinated by geometry and geometric forms with the idea that there can be one thing, but it always has many layers, not just two meanings. Our logo is a Necker cube, which is an optical illusion that consists of a simple wireframe drawing of a cube and can be interpreted in various ways. When people see a childish image on the wall with this name Multistab, I think it somehow plays with their minds with multiple meanings. What we have painted on many walls, I think they have multiple meanings or jokes or sarcasm, you know. 

Let’s talk about the characters. If I am not wrong, the long, pipe-like nose is Karma, isn’t it? 

Ssick: We have no main character like the German street artist Flying Fortress – flying trooper, something like a teddy bear. Karma and Pheriskoop have their own style, which they use quite often when they draw the characters. Pheriskoop, for example, has a static character with the same look in its eyes and other details of the character. Similarly, Karma’s character always has a signature feature – a really big nose. But for myself, I feel that I don’t have that kind of static character, a certain thing I always do the same way. Of course, I also use some patterns that I like to use, but somehow, I always make some changes in detail. What are your thoughts on this, Karma?

The left one is Karma and the right is Ssick, Kalasadana, Helsinki, 2013. Photo: MultistabKarma: Yeah, I think it’s very clear that everybody has their own vision of their characters, and Ssick is always changing, and I really try to stick with my character, that somehow, he always looks like what I am. I don’t bring that much change, but I really like that big nose. (Laughs.)

Most of your characters take some features of monsters, square faces, Boogeyman, sometimes a mix of all, that look very different than what we generally see or imagine – kind of scary, but funny at the same time. Why do you choose such features? Isn’t Boogeyman an Estonian cultural thing?

Karma: A bit of it, yeah. We, or our parents or their parents or their grandparents always said that Boogeyman will come or something to scare us. I have two kids, but I have never told them the Boogeyman is coming, but it’s part of our tradition that the Boogeyman or the monsters live in the woods, and if you are bad, they come to you from the woods. In that way, yeah, it’s in our culture and therefore reflects on our characters. I really like the naive part of my character. I always want to put my character in a silly situation where he looks a little bit stupider than me. (Laughs.)

That’s a very subtle way in engaging local mythology. As far as I know, street art is prohibited by law in Estonia, so, how have you managed your activities on the open walls of urban sites from the beginning to date?

Ssick: I think in the beginning or in the first five years, we were really active and did a lot of, like, let’s say, illegal walls. But these illegal walls were mostly in abandoned spaces or this kind of places where nobody cared, basically. In our experience, local people have been very curious about our work and instigate conversation with us by asking questions, like, how much does a spray can cost or why are we doing this or commenting that we are doing great, mainly positive talking. Most of the time, we receive support from them. And, regarding police action, basically once a police car came to our site while we were painting in 2010 and they asked to show our identity card. We don’t have that many bad experiences dealing with such things, but the possibility that something disturbing could happen during the illegal wall painting is always stressful. Therefore, painting on an illegal wall is always different from a legal wall in terms of time and process.

So, there are walls, ideas or themes, and characters and letters. Could you tell me a little about the process by which you put sketches, lines and colors on the walls?

Karma: You know we don’t do traditional stenciling, that’s our choice. In the beginning, we started to do graffiti only with spray paint. Then we realized that we could make really large murals with bucket paint, and our plus point was that Ssick and I knew how to use spray paint before we got into Multistab. If I say in a way that getting an idea or theme is a mental part of our painting and the rest is really physical. For example, go to the spot, make the sketch on the wall, then press the button and apply the paint and then with the roller press synchronize it with the paint. And then you realize that paint is not enough, then you apply more paint. Sometimes, fingers start aching. This is really both physical and mental work, like sports.

Have you travelled to other countries to paint? 

Karma: Yeah, but not that much. For painting, Ssick and Pheriskoop, I think, visited France in 2017, Pherishkoop and I worked in Denmark during my studies in 2011. And the three of us worked together in Finland in 2012 and 2013 and Latvia in 2014. 

How do you see the European street art scenario while Nug from Sweden, Egs from Finland, Petro from UK, Flying Fortress from Germany have been significantly involved in the scene? 

Karma: Nug is a really big inspiration for me. He is a character himself and he has unconventional ideas and he is definitely a good guy. Especially the things he did, when you look at the train graffiti and the way Stockholm Graffiti has evolved, Nug has definitely played a big role. But I really like the work of Egs and Nug and yes, they are the kings for me. 

Ssick: Yeah it was 2013, I don’t know if I somehow got the chance or I do not remember how it went, but I organised a festival and an exhibition of street art in Helsinki and then I was like a curator or something to invite artists. I invited those I thought were interesting at the time. So I invited Egs. I like his work. We met first in 2010, since then we meet one to three times a year to paint or travel around Estonia and Finland. We are still good friends. 

What do you think about the Estonian street art scenario? Edward von Lõngus, also known as Estonian Banksy, how do you see his artwork? What about other artists like Lé 60, Mina Ja Lydia, Uku Sepsivert?

Karma: Of course, they are part of the Estonian street art. Edward von Lõngus has definitely done something, but I really like Uku Sepsivert a lot. If you look at the artwork of Lõngus and Mina Ja Lydia, they do this kind of street art that I don’t like, for example stencil graffiti. It’s something that isn’t ringing my bell, or I just don’t like it. I don’t hate it at all. It’s just really static, and I don’t understand it, at the same time I don’t need to understand it that way.

Ssick: I don’t want to be skeptical, for me this scene is kind of boring. I don’t think that much extraordinary artwork is happening here these days.

Well, the very frequently asked question now comes up in my head. It’s about Banksy, you know, it’s like the whole world knows the name for his street art, and it’s claimed that no one has ever seen his face. Besides Banksy’s mysterious identity question, how do you see his artworks? 

Ssick: Nowadays I don’t think about him, like, not in a bad or good way. I just don’t think or read anything about him. But when I was very young, like 10 years ago, I saw news about him. He had some interesting thoughts, and of course he made street art really popular. Like Karma, I am also more of a fan of freehand, graffiti, drawings and things that involve this kind of hand touch.  In the beginning of my artistic journey, I was really a big fan of the artist Blu. He did really big, really nice, kind of surrealistic, detailed, also quite sociocritical works on the wall.

Karma: He has a lot of good ideas and he has a really good team behind him. But when it comes to the aesthetics of graffiti or street art, I just don’t like his style. In that respect, Nug is much better compared to Banksy, because he’s like a real graffiti guy. 

Ssick: I am seeing Pheriskoop here. 

Wow, he has joined in, finally! Hello, Pheriskoop! 

Pheriskoop: Hi, really, I fell asleep on the couch. (Laughs.) But I am fine now. 

(Laughs.) No problem. We have already discussed the style and process of Karma and Ssick’s work. What about your side? And, why did you take the name Pheriskoop? 

Pherishkoop: Well, I also do music – hip-hop. As a musician I use a different name that has the two letters P and H. So, when I was added to Multistab, I thought I could use these two letters and I got the name Pheriskoop. That is how the name Pheriskoop was made up. And about the process of work, I usually follow the errors and then correct the technique. When I write lyrics, I always draw at the same time. When I draw, I have made many mistakes and I continue to do so until I get something right. I follow the same process in writing lyrics. Sometimes I get nothing, but sometimes I get something I can use. It’s nothing romantic, I just put my pen on a piece of paper and scribble until I get something.

It sounds nice. Now, if I ask all of you, what’s the future plan for Multistab?  

Karma: Doing graffiti or street art is something you can’t erase from your identity. You will be looking for a cool or unique place to paint your stuff. It really widened my way of seeing the walls, especially the way I see a regular gray brick wall. After starting this journey as an artist, I see the possibilities on the walls, how to express something we didn’t express earlier – that might sound romantic, but it is what it is. My plan for the future is to do the same thing I have always done: walk around, see new places in Estonia, find walls, take pictures, draw characters, see my friends and paint together.

Pheriskoop: Actually, we have been talking about stopping it for some time. It has just been like a word we’ve thrown out, but we haven’t stopped. I don’t think we are going to stop, we have been doing some commissioned work, clothing design and silkscreen stuff apart from street painting and graffiti writing. 

Ssick: The point is, the dynamics of our work have changed and it’s normal in a sense that it will change in the future to adapt our personal lives. We never did or do work according to a master plan or mission. It has always been organic, and we want to stick to that.

Multistab was interviewed by Shameema Binte Rahman.

In March 2018 culture.ee actively streamed about Tallinn Music Week, a creative music festival. In September music, art, and international festival experience exchange has reached the Eastern borders of Estonia.

What makes TMW special? Its international harmony between art styles and forms. For example, at TMW you could listen to various bands from all over the world, see works of Estonian designers, taste eco ice-cream LaMuu at pop-up cafés, and talk about urban planning and climate change.

Cherry on the top of this creative cake was the upcoming music festival Station Narva in a frontier town that harbours Russian-speaking Estonians.

Apéritif

Why was this festival so interesting to me, someone who fled the town like fire the moment I graduated high school ten years ago? First of all, TMW was a blast and I had to see if it can be done in Narva as well. Second of all, Narva has changed a lot during a decade of my living abroad and I just had to see if Narva really is next (#narvaisnext is the main hashtag of the campaign for Narva to become a cultural capital of Europe in 2024). “Must go there,” I said to myself and there I was.

Breakfast “à la Narva”

The non-formal learning centre VitaTiim was a great place to reconcile with rapidly changing Narva. A long table with “Narva breakfast” (tea, coffee, sandwiches and pancakes with jam) was a meeting point for the youth workers of the centre, local activists, and the guests of the festival from Narva, Tallinn, Tartu, Pärnu… In my line of work I encountered Russian- and Estonian-speaking politicians and cultural personae to get together for a discussion, but for the first time in my life did I see Estonians and Russians mingling together instead of dividing themselves into language groups and talking just about everything in so-called Narva language (or narva keel in Estonian which is also known as Ida-Viru language, a curious mix of Russian and Estonian spoken by half Ida-Viru county and Tallinn). Go Narva keel!

Perfectly imperfect lunch

My lunch took place in Narva Art Residency where I was awaited by muffins and an “imperfect” presentation of one “imperfect” art/book project. Two Finnish artists and comic-book authors Kaisa Leka and Christoffer Leka talked how they crossed the USA by bicycle and made an “Imperfect” travel journal about it (“Imperfect”, 2017: Absolute Truth Press). You can read about the well-designed book and buy it here if you ever get inspired by the first line of the book manual: “To read this book you will need a knife”. The language of the book presentation has evolved into the international: the artists conversed with the public in English by adding a Russian phrase here and there while the public assisted the interpreter.

A snack

To go off topic, I decided to have a walk around town after the presentation (and get warm in a café, because the unusually hot summer has come to its end). Luckily I met a former classmate who gave me a tour of this new Narva. The town has truly changed a lot: new shops, cafés, restored park, and new (bigger than in Tallinn) Vaba Lava theatre hint that Narva becomes cool.

What’s for dinner?

For dinner, we had BAZAR or discussions about imported festivals and Narva people’s identity. And again, the discussions were held in Narva keel with some English seasoning. Quite symbolic because Narva residents discussed issues on an international level with the guests from all over Estonia, Russia, Germany, Finland, Sweden. We talked about:

• how can a provincial town become cultural capital;
• how to create a common information network for a small but multinational country;
• how Russian-speaking residents identify themselves vis-à-vis the Estonian population;
• how to interest the youth in active cultural life;
• what Narva residents have so special that nobody else has.

Waiting for a dessert

During these discussions I had a revelation. Any issue can be related to the proud multicultural and multilingual identity of the Narva inhabitants. Russian-speaking Estonians live not on the edge of Europe but on the frontier of two worlds and they need to use this cultural, economical, linguistic position to their advantage. Narva language is nowhere near official language but it has its charm of an Eastern-Estonian dialect and maybe it will become a first step towards the nationwide information exchange.

As a person who was wondering for half of my life whether I am Estonian or Russian, I have now learned to accept and operate multiple cultural identities because in this globalised world there are better things to think of. For example, what future awaits Narva and what its ascend will be like?

And an espresso to boost the energy

I truly hope that next year Station Narva will take place again and there will be more Narva residents on bazaars, concerts, art shows (both as visitors and as participants).

For now, let’s get inspired.

Thanks to 750 musicians, more than 100 free concerts enrich the programme of the Music Day on October 1! Of course, it’s not possible to experience everything. Here are, however, three options for spending one music-filled day!

Option A – Music Day in Tallinn

Start your Music Day at 11 a.m. at the market of the Baltic Station, where the Ellerhein Girls’ Choir will perform under the conduction of Ingrid Kõrvits.
From there, go to the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre, where violinist Sänni Noormets will give a concert at 12 o’clock.
When the wonderful violin concert is over, run to the Telliskivi Creative City by 2 p.m., where the Police and Border Guard Orchestra performs under the baton of Hando Põldmäe.
After that, it’s time for lunch and the Music Day can continue at the Russian Cultural Centre’s Chamber Hall, where at 4 p.m. the musicians of the Russian Philharmonic Society will perform.
After the end of the concert at the Russian Cultural Centre, you can jump to the tram no 4 at Vabaduse Square, which departs at 5.15 p.m. There you can enjoy the concert “Tallinn Invites You!” with the stars Jennifer Marisse Cohen (vocals) and Luisa Lõhmus (guitar, ukulele, vocals).
Then you can go home and turn on the TV at 7 p.m. to enjoy the Estonian Television live broadcast from Music Awards Ceremony at the Estonian Concert Hall, where the Estonian Music Council and the Endowment for Music of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia reward outstanding musicians.

Option B – Music Day in Central Estonia

Start your Music Day at 12 o’clock with the organ half-hour, where the acclaimed duo Teet Järvi (cello) and Mari Järvi (organ) perform at the Järva-Jaani Church.
From there, go to the Paide Cultural Centre, where at 1 p.m. you will get part of the magnificent event “Your Adventure with Estonian National Symphony Orchestra”! An ideal event to visit with children. Musicians from the Estonian National Symphony Orchestra introduce their important instruments, musical instruments, to the smallest of the family, and after that you can enjoy the musical fairy tale, Sergei Prokofiev’s “Peter and the Wolf “ under the conduction of Toomas Vavilov.
The adventure continues with the performances by various Estonian National Symphony Orchestra’s chamber ensembles, but if you wish to see even more diverse artists, it’s a good idea to go to Rapla, where Kadri-Liis Kukk (soprano) and Mihkel Järvi (piano) will perform at 4 p.m. at Rapla Cultural Centre.
After that, run home to make yourself comfortable in front of the television at 7 p.m., as the Estonian Television will make a live broadcast from Music Awards Ceremony at the Estonian Concert Hall, where the Estonian Music Council and the Endowment for Music of the Cultural Endowment of Estonia reward outstanding musicians.

Option C – Music Day in Southern Estonia

Start your Music Day at the Vanemuine Concert Hall at 11 a.m., where you can listen to charming Marion Strandberg (flute, piano, vocals) and Priit Strandberg (vocals, piano, guitar) and String Quartet including Susann-Elisabeth Eessaar (violin), Lucia Sanchis Alfonso (violin), Aike Randmann (cello) and Lauri Sõõro (cello).
From there, go to Mooste Folk House, where at 3 p.m. the concert of the legendary Estonian TV Girls’ Choir will start under the conduction of Aarne Saluveer.
Once you have been charmed by the girls’ choir, go to the Suure-Jaani Church, where an organ half-hour will begin at 6 p.m. and Merike Saaremets will take a seat behind the king of the instruments.

If you don’t have enough energy for the whole tour, why not to choose just some favourite concerts.

For example:

• 12 p.m. Loo Cultural Centre, Duo Malva & Priks.
  Nice performance with the touch of traditional music by the duo Kulno Malva (vocals, accordion, bagpipe) and Kristjan Priks (vocals, percussion)
• 1 p.m. Pärnu Town Hall, Estonian Children’s Choir Ilmalilled, conductors Ave Sopp and Vilve Maide, guest Hain Hõlpus. Warm and good!
• 2 p.m. Saue Music School, Csaba Zolta Marjan (percussion) and Anneli Tohver (piano).
  When was the last time you experienced the enchanting concurrence of piano music and virtuous percussions? Now you have an opportunity!
• 3 p.m. Jõhvi Concert Hall, Estonian pianists’ gala.
  A selection of the most brilliant Estonian pianists will perform: Age Juurikas, Tanel Joamets, Kristi Kapten, Sten Lassmann, Mati Mikalai, Mihkel Poll and Kai Ratassepp. Jõhvi Concert Hall is worth to visit already at 12 o’clock because piano music plays there all day: piano music for the whole family Estonian pianists and students from Jõhvi Music School and Ahtme Art School, and at 1.30 p.m. Prokofiev’s “Cinderella” will be performed by Kai Ratassepp and Mati Mikalai.
• 12 p.m., 1.30 p.m. and 2.30 p.m. Hüpassaare, Mart Saar’s Museum yard in Viljandi County, “Mart Saar 135”. Mart Saar’s 135^th anniversary programme.
  There will be performances by chamber choir Head Ööd, Vend (conductor Pärt Uusberg), Tartu University Chamber Choir (conductor Triin Koch), female choir Carmina (conductor Margit Võsa) and texts by the musician and music teacher Riina Roose.
  Additionally, Mati Turi (tenor) and Martti Raide (piano) make a performance that is based on the Mart Saar’s works. They are accompanied by the pianists Rasmus Andreas Raide and Carita Irjas. At the same time, Turi and Raide present their Mart Saar’s solo songs album titled “Ussisõnad”. The album includes 19 solo songs and folk tune arrangements, among them the first recordings of five previously unpublished works.

There is also a bog hike “In the footsteps of Mart Saar” for the participants. This is guided by Riina Roose.
There is also a free bus from Viljandi to Hüpassaare. On the 1st of October, the bus departs from Viljandi at the car park behind the St. Paul’s Church at 10.30 and returns to Viljandi at around 4.30 p.m. If necessary, stops in Olustvere and Suure-Jaani are also possible. Registration here:
https://beta.doodle.com/poll/sty7wdvdneikwcgs

• 3 p.m. Põltsamaa Cultural Centre. Concert and meeting with a composer Olav Ehala.

Who wouldn’t like Olav Ehala? The concert will be accompanied by Hanna-Liina Võsa (vocals) and the composer’s works will be presented by the saxophone quintet of Põltsamaa Music School and music groups of Põltsamaa Cultural Centre.

• 4 p.m. Tapa Culture House. Soprano Ksenia Kuchukova and pianist Helin Kapten.

High-quality classical music at your home!

Give yourself one day full of music!

The programme of the Music Day can be explored by region here: www.muusikapaev.ee/muusikapaevast
You can find the information about performers here: www.muusikapaev.ee/esinejad
 

This week we recommend a whole lot of interesting things. There is, for example a literature festival, that you can enjoy even if you do not speak Estonian, and the Tallinn Photomonth that doesn’t require for you to be from Tallinn or enjoy traditional kinds of photography.
Arvo Pärt Days 2017: Tintinnabuli
10 Sep /11 Sep
Tartu St Paul’s Church/Tallinn St John’s Church
The British vocal ensemble The Tallis Scholars first became famous as performers of Renaissance music, praised for their unique and pure sound quality. They recorded the disc Tintinnabuli (Gimell) for Arvo Pärt’s 80th anniversary, accoladed by many and rated among the top ten Arvo Pärt’s musical recordings by the well-known music magazine Gramophone. The concerts in Tallinn and Tartu are the joyous occasions for the Nargenfestival audience to listen to Arvo Pärt’s musical works from the disc.
Literary Street Festival
09 Sep
A. H. Tammsaare museum
Almost all literary institutions come to visit the Literary Street Festival. In their open tents, there are programs, specially created for the festival. Among others there are Viivi Luik, Tõnu Õnnepalu, Kristiina Ehin, Karl Martin Sinijärv, Indrek Koff, Doris Kareva and others. You can participate in the quiz, take part of new book presentations, listen to cultural and literary discussions. There are also literary walks, book sales and intriguing exhibitions. Exciting activities for children all day long.
Tartu Street Food Festival
09 Sep
The Widget Factory
Telliskivi Creative City, Tallinn Street Food Festival, and the Widget Factory present: Tartu Street Food Festival. The biggest and most popular street food event in Estonia brings the widest selection of street food to Tartu: there are cafes of the Widget Factory, food trucks, pop-up restaurants, and alternative chefs.
Kuressaare Street Picnic
09 Sep
Kuressaare
It only happens once a year that Lossi Street in Kuressaare is full of picnic tables. The crowd is enjoying their food and drinks and dancing to the music. The cafes on the street are ready to help and serve you if you do not have your own picnic equipment.
Complete Works: Table Top Shakespeare
05 Sep – 10 Sep
Kanuti Gildi SAAL
One by one, over 6 days, Forced Entertainment performers condense every Shakespeare play ever written into a series of 36 intimate and lovingly made miniatures, played out on a one-metre table-top using a collection of un-extraordinary everyday objects. Forced Entertainment have long had an obsession with virtual or described performance, exploring in different ways over the years the possibilities of conjuring extraordinary scenes, images and narratives using language alone. In a brand new direction for the company, Complete Works explores the dynamic force of narrative in a simple and idiosyncratic summary of Shakespeare’s comedies, tragedies, histories and late plays, creating worlds as vivid as they are strange.
English Comedy Night – Brendon Burns & Craig Quartermaine
06 Sep /07 Sep
Athena Center/Von Krahl Theatre
September’s stand up show is one of the top events at the 2017 Edinburgh Fringe Festival, “RACE OFF” with Australian comedians Brendon Burns and Craig Quartermaine. Brendon is no stranger to Estonia, he has been here three times before and was actually on an episode of Kodumäng with us where he managed to piss off Indrek Vaheoja and won a toaster for his efforts. Brendon is fast and intense, he has been performing around the globe for 27 years and has won best comedian at Edinburgh Fringe Festival. Also, Brendon is white. Craig is an Australian Raw Comedy finalist and journalist and was once a chef’s apprentice. Since entering Raw Comedy in 2016 (the major newcomer award in Australia) this “charming ball of rage” has gone from strength to strength. Also, Craig is an Aboriginal Australian.
 
Photo exhibition: Louisa Marie Summer “Border Walks”
05 Sep – 28 Sep
Pärnu Central Library
In autumn 2016 Louisa Marie Summer from Germany, visited Estonia to explore the idea of local borders, both in Tallinn and Narva. Through her photographs, the artist captures, in her own artistic perspective, these traces that remain in urban daily life. At the core of the European project has always been an effort to reduce the significance of borders – international boundaries as well as educational, economic and social borders.
Tallinn Photomonth ’17
01 Sep – 29 Oct
Tallinn Art Hall
International contemporary art biennial Tallinn Photomonth ’17 introduces its programme by international and Estonian artists at various art venues in Tallinn and Narva. Tallinn Photomonth opened on 1 September with the group exhibition Image Drain curated by Anthea Buys at Tallinn Art Hall and the Museum of Photography.

Tallinn Photomonth started  on Friday evening  with the opening of the main exhibition  at the Tallinn Art Hall and lucky for us, we got to ask a few questions from the organizers Kadri Laas(left in the photo) and Laura Toots(right in the photo) before  everything  went into action.

When it comes to this year’s programme, it is notable that many of the represented artists don’t necessarily express themselves through photography on a day-to-day basis. Why make these choices?
Ever since it was first held in 2011, Tallinn Photomonth– despite it’s name—has been about taking a look at contemporary art as a whole. Still, we’ve stuck with the name Photomonth since the modern world is overflowing with photos; it’s aware of its’ photogenicity, so it uses these photos as a fundamental way of communication. The 2017 programme includes painting- and photo exhibitions, installations, residencies, book presentations, studio visits and film screenings in both cultural institutions and open space.
How was the Photomonth programme put together? How were the artists and their works chosen? Which themes were developed?
We started working on the programme with the opening exhibition in Tallinn Art Hall. In the summer of 2016, we organized an international curator contest. As a result, we picked Anthea Buys (a South African curator and writer) to be the curator of our group exhibition. What made Buys’ exhibiton project stand out was the fictional approach- the characters are real, historical people, who Buys has written into different fictional situations.
We made a conscious choice of not giving the participants a central topic to work with, giving every artist and curator their respective creative freedom. Regardless, it seems that Photomonth’s opening exhibition „Visuaalkurnatus“ („Image Drain“) has also inspired the rest of the programme, covering many significant breaking points in the past, present and future. Key words like the passing of time, dreaming about the future, emigration and occupation have established a pronounced direction for the entire programme.
The selection process has generally been multifaceted. We’ve included a lot of our old favourites that step away from the exhibition format (f.e the film screenings in Sõprus cinema, artists’ residencies in EKKM and Narva’s art residency), as well as a lot of rooms that exhibitions are not commonly held in. The key issue was the so-called „matchmaking“- finding an appropriate room for an exhibition, attuning a certain artist to a certain room and getting curators to create projects centered around specific places.
This year there have been over 20 exhibitions in addition to the hectic public programme.
Photomonth is divided into categories (exhibitions, fair, events), how does this division work?
There are no divisions in the context of the medium- there are exhibitions, residencies, book presentations and other events taking place. The main programme includes exhibitions in Tallinn Art Hall, Photomuseum, Estonian Contemporary Art Museum, Kanuti Guild Hall, ARS project room, Telliskivi Creative City, Puänt bookstore, Freedom Square and KUMU. Furthermore, Sõprus cinema is showing artists’ short films and people are visiting artists’ studios all over the city.
In addition to the main programme, a gallery programme is being held in parallell with Photomonth. The programme features Estonian artists’ solo exhibitions in the following galleries: Temnikova & Kasela
gallery, Hobusepea gallery, Art Hall gallery, Tallinn City Gallery, Mihhail gallery, Vaal gallery, Draakoni gallery.
This year, Tallinn Photomonth extends to Narva with two exhibitions and a foreign artists’ residency held in Narva Art Gallery and Narva Art Residency.
In September, Estonian Photographic Art Fair will take place for the eight time in Telliskivi Creative City.
What are Photomonth’s goals, does it aim to introduce (Estonian) photography to a wider audience or is it targeted at the people aready acquainted with the art field?
It is important for Tallinn Photomonth to be diverse and intertwined, especially in engaging different audience groups. The lectures, the guide excursions, the conversations with the artists, the movie nights and the book presentations are all aimed at not only art professionals, but the general public and that is also reflected in the topics we’ve chosen for our events. Moreover, the plays held in Tallinn and Narva act as a platform for our educational program, which we offer free in Estonian and Russian. The aim of the educational program is to improve visual reading skill, raise interest towards contemporary art, improve the ability to analyze art phenomenons and offer inspiration for creative activity.
I would also like to bring up Professional Week (held during the last week of September), which includes a programme on the topic of professional perspective open to all those interested.
Photo by Helen Melesk. Interview translated by Emili Maiste.

The students of the Estonian Art Academy had some Pop-up cafes opened at the Tallinn old town, on the Nunne street and one of them  got shot down a few hours ago, but  here are  some pictures of what was. We are sure this is not the last of the quirky architectonic formations by the young architects at hand, so let’s keep our eyes open.










 

Tallinn Music Week can also be enjoyed by those, who do not wish to visit evening concerts, as TMW programme appreciably also includes the City Stage programme, which offers lots of entertainment for free. We have highlighted some venues, where the festival is easily experienced.

Viru Centre

The City Stage programme started today at 13 o’clock already. In the atrium of Viru Centre, conductor Kristjan Järvi played a DJ-set along with the beatbox world champion Bellatrix and contemporary musician and rapper Gene Pritskeri aka Di. J. NoizePunk. This was followed by the performance interpreting folk music in the key of improvisational jazz by Kadri Voorand, Jaak Sooäär, Liisi Koikson, and Paul Daniel.

A total of 20 concerts takes place in Viru Centre over the course of the festival and performers range from The Mariachi Ghost, which melts Mexican cultural heritage with prog rock, and Bahraini multi-instrumentalist crew The Flamingods to rapper Azma, who has earned the title „Estonia’s Own Eminem“.

Nordic Hotel Forum

In the suite of TMW’s home hotel Nordic Hotel Forum, punk poet and life and performance artist Indrek Spungin as well as indie rock bands Go Away Bird and Frankie Animal will perform in the afternoon on Thursday, March 30.

Uuskasutuskeskus in Tatari Street

In the framework of the current children’s and youth’s cultural year, the TMW programme includes, for the first time, activities meant specially for kids and youngsters. In the afternoon of Wednesday, March 29, the youths of Tallinn University’s Student Academy curate a City Stage concert in Uuskasutuskeskus in Tatari Street, where the boy band Beyond Beyond, indie folk group The Notes, who won the Estonian Youth Band Award, and indie rock band The Boondocks, one of the most successful of the Z-generation, will perform.

Estonian Children’s Literature Centre

On Saturday, April 1, a family day takes place in the Estonian Children’s Literature Centre. Our folk musician Mari Kalkun and Georgian instrumental ensemble Four Lines will perform with acoustic concerts.

Solaris Centre

Solaris Centre hosts two City Stages – one in Apollo bookstore and the other in Café Mademoiselle, where, among others, Canadian college radio hip-hop chart topper Def3 and Swedish troubadour Albert af Ekenstam will perform.

Palm House of Tallinn Botanic Garden

In the tropical milieu of the palm house of Tallinn Botanic Garden, the Icelandic rap duo Úlfur Úlfur, which is laden with colourful humour and thick beats, our new art rapper EiK, Finnish piano virtuoso Project Vainiolla, as well as Polish juke music star producer Rhythm Baboon can be heard.

Bookstore Püänt

In the cosy bookstore Puänt, versatile musical experiences are offered by violinist Midori Komachi and audiovisual artist abirdwhale from Japan as well as singer-songwriter and civic activist Moddi from Norway.

Office with a City View of the Real Estate Bureau Endover

The office of the real estate bureau Endover on Tartu Road boasts a city view, which provides a backdrop to the concerts of French soul jazz duo Debra Shaw and Muscovite neosoul-poet БЦХ among others.

Muhu Bakers

In the Muhu Bakery of Telliskivi Creative City, the singer-songwriter Lepatriinu and electronics wizard Shtuby, who has created a buzz as the “red man of Iceland”, take the stage.

Restaurant Riis

In the cosy restaurant Riis, which is located in Kadriorg, exotic soundscapes of the world and dance music beats by Su—Mu as well as French band Jumo’s abstract electro-sounds can be enjoyed along with great Asian food.

Office of the Design Bureau Velvet

The creator of TMW’s this year’s web home, design bureau Velvet, hosts the concerts of funk soul group Ashilevi and Finnish singer-songwriter Astrid Swan among others.

Signature House

In Signature House, the design house of classicist architecture located on Kopli peninsula, the well-known Scottish multi-instrumentalist C Duncan and Finnish spiritual shoegazer Mikko Joensuu perform among others.

Musumägi

Just like last year, TMW goes outdoors as well – the radio station MyHits curates an outdoor stage on Musumägi, where the electronics producer Draper, titled one of the most remarkable newcomers of the year by BBC Music, rapper Metsakutsu, the winner of the Best Hip-Hop Album at the Estonian Music Awards, and boy band Beyond Beyond take the stage.

And more…

Under the aegis of the City Stage, three hospitable and music-loving homes in Kalarand, Luther quarter, and Pallasti street also open their doors to festival guests. The acoustic home concerts include Erki Pärnoja’s film-like instrumental music, Curly Strings, which rose to the status of the best European bluegrass ensemble last year, ekke, the manipulator of modular synthesisers, as well as African-born Polish producer Moo Latte.

TMW’s this year’s City Stages also include the cosy café NOP in Kadriorg, bike studio Jooks, interior store and café Homeart and Reval Café in Telliskivi, café-club Must Puudel and Biit Me, Estonia’s best record store, which recently moved to Viru street, in the Old Town.

More information with detailed times on is available on TMW’s homepage.

Last week, the foundation Teeme Ära held the Clean World Conference 2017 in Tallinn to prepare for the worldwide cleanup day. On September 8, 2018, a total of 380 million people is expected to come together to collect waste. Whether the objective will be fulfilled, only time can tell, but Estonia’s reputation will certainly benefit from the initiative.

Delegates from more than 60 countries arrived at the conference and the main objective of the event seems to have been inspiring the local leaders of the other countries to not give up on the cause and try to involve as many new people as possible. The bar is set high. It will not be easy to exceed it.
Essentially, this was not a scientific event, rather a meeting of activists, which at times resembled a rite, where people affirmed their faith in the possibility of a better world. While a song dedicated to Mother Earth was sung in the energy circle on Friday morning, in the evening everyone spontaneously joined in during John Lennon’s programmatic vision of the future, „Imagine”, which sounded at the end of a presentation.
Dreams are beautiful, but life is tough, sceptics or realists would say to that.

One of the foreign guests, Antonis Mavropoulos, the president of International Solid Waste Association, who has worked with respective projects for decades and in dozens of countries, emphasised that waste is the result of inefficient production and inefficient consumption and that technology in itself has never been a problem or could be a solution to the problem.

„History is still written by humans, no matter how developed machines are,” Mavropoulos, said, adding that the task of humans was to lead technology, use it for the right purposes.
Something like this is attempted by Litterati, the founder and manager of which, Jeff Kirschner, said that their vision is to create a waste-free world. For this noble cause, they ask people to take photos of litter on the streets and upload them with data regarding the product, its brand and location onto the web. This creates a large database, which is then sold to companies.
Kirschner noted that the companies are actually interested in such data to better organise their activities. Litterati has spread all over the world and gathered around 320 thousand photos by today. More than half of those are from the United States of America, especially from California, where the initiative started, but there are quite many also from Holland, for example.
Kirschner suggested that one of the potential uses for the images collected would be organising art exhibitions at schools. He said that pupils might write essays on the topic of collected waste, tell stories in class followed by discussions on how this specific waste ending up on the street could have been prevented.
The eastern coast of the USA was represented by Asher Jay, an international adventurer, whose career took him from the fashion world to art projects intended to increase people’s awareness of the environmental issues. When asked how “Let’s Do It, World!” could create as wide a resonance as possible, Jay thought a competition could be organised between countries on who collects the most waste on the global cleanup day. As people love to compete, this sort of competitive approach may engage them better.
A panel discussion in the afternoon was attended by Kersti Kaljulaid, the President of the Republic of Estonia, who seemed to share the gathered people’s dream of a waste-free world.
Presentations were also made by the initiator of „Let’s Do It!”, Rainer Nõlvak, and some other local organisers, who introduced World Cleanup Day 2018, the new masculine brand and the undertaking’s technical side. Nõlvak remarked that if his initiative had failed in Estonia in 2008, this conference would never have taken place.
This is probably true. In this sense, honour and praise. What disturbed me a little is that all the selected performers were from the so-called developed world, the perspective of the developing countries was not represented by anyone on this stage, they only fulfilled the role of the audience. The conference was financed by the development cooperation budget of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and it was organised very professionally.
Also, at times it seemed that cleanliness meant something bordering on sterility. It was actually a little scary. For example, a slide show includes photos where the grass growing between stone slabs on the pavement was removed (fighting against the nature, not human-generated waste) or children of the developing countries playing on decayed mattresses outside (giving a hint of those having to be collected as waste although the children were certainly enjoying them).

Estonian Architecture museum  had a photography competition  last year and now the verdicts are  in.  The best photos are shown at the Estonian architecture museum and  here is a little gallery of yesterday´s exhibition opening.
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A freshly opened exhibition at the Tartu Art Museum ponders over the question of who creates the city. It consists of contemporary visual and textual works representing the notable locations of Tartu and shaping the face of the town.

The aim of the exhibition is to look at the town from the viewpoint of different participating groups. The intelligent development of urban environment is determined by the visions of various participants, their ability to carry out dialogues and to achieve co-operation. We can create a better city together by understanding what possibilities and means for developing the urban space are held by the city government, the real estate developers and the citizens themselves.

It also offers a map for an active citizen, an overview of designs for public spaces and shows architectural objects that understand their context. Glimpses of the mysterious edges of Tartu that shape the atmosphere in the town in their own hidden ways can also be found. In addition, 15 interviews representing various relevant groups are displayed, including architects and officials who plan the town, real estate developers and citizen activists.

The exhibition is curated by the architectural historian Pille Epner and co-curated by architect Kaja Pae. “Who Creates the City?” will remain open until 4 December.

Here is a visual glimpse of the opening event and the works displayed:

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Yet again, the first-year students of the architecture department of the Estonian Academy of Arts have built a new wooden shelter to Harju green area and this time it is called Siluett.

Planning and building a shelter with the whole class has been a large project of the first-year students of the architecture department of the Estonian Academy of Arts for ten years already. But it is only a second time it is erected in Harju street’s green area. The shelter, which is built on location, will remain open for the walkers and wanderers of the Old Town until September 23, after which it will be transported to Pedaspea that has become the home of all the former shelters as well.

A wooden shelter as experimenting with the space, form and material on the scale of a human body is the central assignment of the spring semester of the first-year students of the architecture and city planning department of the Estonian Academy of Arts, which was this year instructed by professor Andres Alver and Indrek Rünkla.

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Author of the idea: Elina Liiva
Authors of the project: Elina Liiva, Markus Puidak, Helena Rummo, Gregor Jürna
Builders: Birgit Vider, Andrea Ainjärv, Taavet Malkov, Lisette Eriste, Janeli Voll, Liisi Voll, Markus Puidak, Gregor Jürna, Elina Liiva, Helena Rummo, Anastassia Sirelpuu
Photos by Paco Ulman(Estonian Academy of Arts)
More information on the idea of the series of shelters and all the objects built to date is available at www.artun.ee/varjualused.

During the Maritime Culture Year of 2016 Linnalabor together with landowners created beta-promenade from Kalasadam to Noblessner quarter. Beta-promenade is a simple footpath along the seaside, created by removing fences, opening up gates and fortifying the shore. The initiative was one of the 20 winning entries to the idea contest of the Maritime Culture Year.
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