Works by: Angela Anderson and Angela Melitopoulos, Adam Avikainen, Cian Dayrit, Jonathas de Andrade, Bram Demunter, Silje Figenschou Thoresen, James T. Hong, Edith Karlson, Ana Mendieta, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Maarten Vanden Eynde and Musasa, Ana Vaz and Tristan Bera.
Research contributions by Marika Agu and Francisco Martinez, Konstantinos Doumpenidis, Tanel Rander.
7 September - 20 October, 2019
EKKM (Contemporary Art Museum of Estonia)
Pรตhja pst. 35,
Tallinn
The starting
point for When You Say
We Belong To The Light We Belong To The Thunder –
the opening exhibition of Tallinn
Photomonth contemporary art biennial – is the question how psychological reactions to climate
chaos are influencing real life politics. The display proposes an imaginary
study of the notions of ‘owning’ and ‘belonging’ in relation to soil.
While recent
decades were marked by the drive to disconnect from physical locations, ideas
of place and belonging seem to have seen something of a revival, both in a
renewed care for the planet but also in increasingly harsh migration policies.
The inquiry focuses on how images regarding the units that we belong to –
the world, the nation state, the
family – have
implications for our level of care.
The title is
borrowed from the lyrics of the 1985 pop song We Belong by Pat Benatar. Months after We Belong towered in pop charts in the West, Mikhail Gorbachev
announced Perestroika, which made it possible for Estonians to openly protest
their belonging to the Soviet Union, and a large ecological movement became the
catalyst for Estonian independence. Embedded in local and global research, the
exhibition studies the intruding pull of nationalism in relation to ecological
concerns.